


Purgatory

by Blankfreeze1958



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-27 15:46:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30125112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blankfreeze1958/pseuds/Blankfreeze1958
Summary: One month, different perspectives.She’s turned slightly, he can see the profile of her face, her hair amiss… tousled, he thinks with a shiver, her arm extended back, fingers splayed, like she’s running toward the window but looking back at the same time and he thinks he’s going to be sick because he knows that feeling. He knows it so well. Being pulled forward, but desperate for the past, and caught somewhere in the darkness that makes up the middle. Purgatory.
Relationships: Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue, Scott Moir/Tessa Virtue
Comments: 44
Kudos: 68





	1. Purgatory

December 1st - Scott

* * *

“Uncle Scott, go deep!” One of his nephews shouts to him, tossing the football. He does… a little too deep. His hip clips something and there’s a loud clatter as the lamp on the side table by the sofa crashes to the ground. It’s not fancy or anything, isn’t made of glass or ceramic - his mother never invested in those types of things with three boys in the house - so it doesn’t break. 

His nephews snicker as he fumbles to pick it up, sets the lampshade back on unevenly. He thinks for a moment they might get away unscathed, but his mother appears in the doorway, hands on her hips. “What did I tell you boys-“ She stops when she sees Scott, cheeks flushed red, standing by the lamp, guilty as sin, just as he’d done years ago as a child. She shakes her head and hides her smirk. “Come help me for a minute.” She says to him, and gives her grandsons a look as if to say _no more football inside._

Scott follows his mother back to the kitchen where she hands him a knife and points to the carrots on the cutting board. “Chop.” She says. And he’s not a child, but it’s his mother asking and he’s going to do what she says, especially after he’s been caught tossing a football around her living room. 

“What time is Ashley coming over?” 

“She’s uh… not.” Scott says, keeping his focus on the carrots so he won’t have to see his mother’s expression. 

“That’s what? Not a thing anymore?” She asks. 

Scott gives a quick shake of his head. “Not anymore.” 

He hears her try and disguise a sigh. “What happened?” She asks. 

Scott sighs, doesn’t try to disguise it. “I don’t know, mum, it just didn’t work out.” He looks up at her and she can see the hurt, but more than that, something like _shame_ in his expression. 

“Okay.” She says. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.” 

“Yeah.” Scott says, turning his attention back to the carrots.

It’s his nephew’s birthday and the whole family is here to celebrate. 

He can hear his brothers in the other room laughing with their wives. Sometimes at functions like this, Scott can’t help but feel like he’s failed in some strange way. He’s always had girlfriends, and he’s always thought it bode well for him for the future, because family has always been important to him. But all his relationships, no matter how serious they might have been, have ended for one reason or another. In his younger years, this was probably because of Tessa - or rather, the nature of their relationship. It made his girlfriends uncomfortable, weary. But that was alright. If someone couldn’t accept he and Tessa’s relationship then it just wasn’t going to work out anyway because Tessa wasn’t going anywhere… until she did. And none of his relationships after that have been very serious. There was just something missing in all of them and he couldn’t bring himself to _care._ He feels like an asshole when he thinks about it that way, but it’s the truth. 

“You know,” his mother says in that way that makes him feel uneasy, “I talked to Kate the other day. Ran into her at the supermarket.” 

“Mh.” Scott says, nodding. 

“Tess is coming home for a month.” She says, and Scott clears his throat. “Yep.” He says. 

“Oh, have you talked to her?” His mum inquires. 

“No.” He says, gruffly. 

“Oh.” She says again. “Well, she’ll be home all of December, so I thought… I don’t know, maybe it would be nice for the two of you to get together. Maybe you could ask her to dinner or something.” 

“Mum.” Scott groans.

“Not in a romantic way or anything.” His mother clarifies, like she’s offended he’d even suggested that might be her intent. “Just as friends. I just think the two of you should catch up. It’s been so long, after all. I’m not really sure why you don’t talk more but maybe while your both here it’ll make things a little easier.” 

“Yeah, maybe.” Scott grumbles, finishing the carrots. “Here.” He says, scraping them into a bowl for her and setting it beside her.

His mother sighs. “Honey, I just think it would be good for you to branch out a little bit, see something besides the inside of a bar or a crummy old rink.” 

“I am branching out.” He says, feeling like a child, suddenly. “I signed up for a photography club.” 

He watches a surprised look appear on his mother’s face. 

“What spurred that?” She asks, drying her hands on the dishtowel hanging from the oven handle. 

Scott shrugs. “I just felt like it.” 

He’s not really sure when the idea came to him. He and Tessa had spoken months ago for some charity event that neither of them had the heart to turn down and she’d mentioned something then. It must’ve been back in the summer… or the spring. It was hard to keep track… 

That’s not true. 

It was April because she was wearing a pastel dress with a velvet hair ribbon and was excited about all the Easter candies backstage. He knows exactly when it was. Tuesday, April 9th. He just doesn’t think it’s _good_ that he remembers. He doesn’t think it’s good for him to think about, so he tries his best not to, but then he just ends up thinking about how he’s actively not thinking about it, and then he thinks how funny she would find that, and can picture the look on her face if he were to tell her which then means that he’s thinking about her anyway, so it’s kind of futile. 

Anyway, she’d been telling him about this photography club she’d joined in Toronto with those wide green eyes and she’d been so excited about it, her ribbon-clad ponytail bouncing up and down while she went on and on about how _interesting_ it was to interpret other people’s work, how _fun_ it was to make art in a different way, and how it’s _such a great way to meet people._ He thinks she added that last part in just to piss him off. She’d always liked seeing him that way, jealous to the point of anger. And it had worked, because he thought about her, about guys at her fucking _photography class_ , hitting on her. And he of course laughed at himself later for it, how ridiculous and stupid that sounded, as if guys who attended a _photography class_ would have absolutely any game at all, let alone enough to confidently talk to _Tessa_ … but the thought stuck with him. So out of curiosity, he joined a photography club in London. 

So really, he _is_ exactly sure when the idea came to him - Tuesday April 9th, after a charity event, while he was sat at home, three quarters and four beers deep into the Leaf’s game, his mind on Tessa. 

But he hadn’t acted on it yet. It had taken him time to work up the courage to actually go. He wasn’t really worried about the people. He figured in London, it’d be a bunch of amiable late middle aged ladies, or maybe those types of guys who wear toques year round and have the fingers cut off their gloves. He’s not intimidated by people easily. So no, it hadn’t been that that had made him nervous. It had been the idea of looking at or taking a photo and discussing it. He just didn’t think he’d be any good at that. Looking was one thing, he could do that, it was the analysis that came afterward that he worried about. Tessa would talk all the time about _symbolism_ this and _metaphor_ that, _irony_ and _parody, juxtaposition_ and the worst he’s heard to date, _verisimilitude._ He wouldn’t even take a crack at spelling half those things let alone trying to relate them to something he’s looking at. 

But he’s going to do it because he needs _something_. Tess wouldn’t just sit still the way he has, coaching at the rink three days a week, shooting pucks at the pond, golfing, spending a few hours at the shop here and there the other four. It’s like he’s _actually_ retired, like _geriatric-ly_ retired. Tess would think it’s lame, and to be honest, it is. He hasn’t made any forward progress in his life since they’d won the Olympics five years ago. 

That had been Tessa’s problem for a little while, not his. She’d been the one who’d felt directionless, like she’d checked off everything on her list. It had been hard to watch her like that. It was so unlike her. But then he realised it wasn’t that she’d felt _done_ , it was that she’d felt so completely overwhelmed with the possibilities of what she could do next that she just froze for a little while, kind of like a deer in headlights. 

But she’d snapped out of it… or had dragged herself out of it, more like. She’d never looked rougher than when he’d seen her those few times. He’d had to physically pick her up to get her out of bed, pull her out the door to get her to go for a walk, just so she could get a little sun, a little fresh air. She’d lost weight, hardly slept, had nightmares sometimes, was sick all the time. It had been horrible. 

But then one day she was Tess again. He doesn’t get to know her secrets. All those years with her and he still doesn’t know how she does it, pulls herself together so completely without anyone’s help, she just does it. And she’s brilliant at it like she is everything else she puts her mind to.

What he’s trying to say is that Tess kept moving forward and he thinks he should too. Even if forward means settling, at least it’s moving. 

So he’s going to this photography club. 

Finally, after months of not showing up. He’s just going to. 

* * *

December 2nd - Tessa & Kate

* * *

It’s quality over quantity, that’s what it is, she tells herself. Everyone knows that’s the better option. Everyone knows five deadlifts with proper form are loads better than ten with your back hunched. Everyone knows reading, and actually _digesting_ one book is better than skimming a whole library. Everyone knows that, don’t they? 

If they do, she’s not so sure why they don’t communicate it. 

So what if she’s only ever felt something for _one_ person? It’s better to have felt that - that inescapable, uncontrollable, feverish attraction with one person than to have had semi-meaningful, fledgling flings with lots of people. 

It’s better that way, isn’t it? 

She thinks it is. Quality over quantity. Nobody every talks about it in the reverse order. She tries to think of a scenario where it might be applicable to have more instead of better. More sex instead of good sex? No. More chocolate instead of good chocolate? No. More property instead of better property? No, thank you. Quality is better, quality wins in every scenario. 

So what’s the problem then? Why won’t her family leave her alone? She’s had the experience she’d wanted. She’s had the quality. She doesn’t need the quantity. She doesn’t even want it. What’s the point of wanting something you know isn’t going to measure up to what you’ve had? She’s never been inclined to think that way. 

When she reached her potential at skating, she quit. 

Why bother pursuing second best? Why bother pursuing anything but excellence? Anything but the absolute gold standard? There’s no point in it. So she doesn’t. 

And she’s okay with that. She doesn’t think about having someone else because she knows they wouldn’t measure up. That’s just how it is and she’s unwilling to settle. She prides herself on this, actually. She thinks it’s an admirable quality and she thinks people would be happier if they simply stopped trying to pretend that you can fill a pothole with a pebble. 

It’s not revolutionary, she’s not under the impression that she’s enlightened or anything, but she doesn’t understand why people resist the thought so desperately. 

It’s like they pity her for it, and that’s the part hat really bothers her because she absolutely believes to each their own, but when she sees the looks she gets when she dines out alone, buys a ticket for one, leaves family functions on her own, it pisses her off. 

She’s filled with potholes, she acknowledges that, but so is _everyone._ She’s just not going to delude herself into believing that she can fill them with pebbles. Potholes are unsightly, they make the ride a little bumpy, but you can still power through them. Pebbles never make a lick of difference so if she can’t have the asphalt to fill them up, she’s just going to power through. Trying to fill them with pebbles is just a waste of time. 

“Honey, Karen’s son is in town this weekend.” Her mum says, voice inexplicably low, as if her mother’s worried about the ghosts in her empty house hearing her. “He’s a lawyer. Very successful, and he’s _single._ ” 

_Single._ Tessa scoffs at the word. _Single._ As if being single is an affliction or makes you incomplete. Nobody ever _whispers_ about being double _._ What makes one better than the other? What makes one more desirable? She supposes if it’s a quality over quantity kind of relationship. _That’s_ what makes it superior. Because in those kinds of relationships, you aren’t single, but you’re not just double either. You’re not just two singles who’ve joined together and become one plus one. You’re multidimensional. You’re the you that you never really pictured you could ever be. You’re you _and_ you’re you through someone else’s eyes, someone else who inexplicably thinks that you’re ten hundred trillion times better than you ever thought you could be. You’re two people who think about one another as greater than singular and who live together as greater than double because of it. 

Never, but especially not in London at Christmastime, when she knows _he’s_ around, is she looking to fill a pothole with a random lawyer-shaped pebble. 

“I’m busy.” Tessa says, adding a “But thanks.” For no other reason than to placate her mother who she does love dearly and who she knows worries over her for reasons she’s only found more and more frustrating as time goes on. 

“The whole month?” Kate asks, knowing that Tessa’s blocked off that amount of time for a _decompression_ of sorts - Tessa’d been fully averse to calling it anything but that, a _decompression,_ making it clear that it isn’t a time for rest, or at least not any sort of rest that wasn’t fully and profoundly _active,_ which doesn’t surprise Kate but does still make her worry more than usual about her youngest. 

“Yeah.” Tessa says, drumming her fingers on the granite countertop, her keyring, attached to her car key still looped around her left forefinger - the only ring she’s ever worn on that finger - a symbol of her freedom, she thinks. She’s married, engaged, in a torrid affair with _movement_ of any sort or method - by train, plane, car, her body, her skates - finding any way possible not to be stagnant. And when her physical body is demanding her to be still, it’s her mind that moves, faster than any of those modes of movement. And that’s what she calls _decompression_. Because she’s whittling all the world around her down to only one or two things in those moments. She’s taking the big picture, her greatest fears or insecurities, and setting her mind on a treadmill until it loses the weight of those great big problems, until it slims them down to their bare bones and she’s light enough to move in the physical sense again. 

Kate sighs, fiddles with her right earring, which she can tell makes Tessa tense. She’s not going to ask, because she knows the answer, but she wishes it were different. She wishes she could say his _name_ at least, without seeing the look of utter agony on her daughter’s face. She knows she doesn’t understand what went on between Scott and Tessa. She doesn’t think anyone can, she’s not even sure if they know themselves, but as the years ticked by, it had only become harder for her to talk about. She’d only steeled herself more and more to the pain it had so obviously caused her. Kate would never say that it _broke_ Tessa. She doesn’t think it’s possible. Her youngest is perhaps the strongest person she’s ever known. But it has affected her greatly. It has coloured her differently than perhaps she’d ever have thought. And how could it not? Scott had been the bedrock of her childhood. Or, to paint a more accurate picture, because she knows how much Tessa meant to Scott as well, she’d say they were two rivers, each with their own current, but drawing and borne from the same body of water. Everything that they had came from one and flowed into the other, and vice versa. And every way that one was different, allowed the other to adapt and grow to make space, to accept whatever it was into their life because they really couldn’t help it. If they didn’t draw from each other, they’d dry up. But that was when they were together. It seems that since the Olympics, Tessa has grown into more than Kate ever could have imagined. She’s confident and bold and strong and sweet and caring and soft. She’s all of those things that she learned to be either from herself or from Scott, and she hasn’t dried up at all. Here they are now, nearly five years after it all, and Kate marvels at the way Tessa has managed to keep herself flowing. It’s not that Kate’s surprised. Of course her daughter doesn’t need Scott to function. But she does see the very real ways in which his absence in her life affects her. 

She won’t accept anything less. Scott was everything - best friend, partner in crime, boyfriend at times, even a father figure when they were younger, her protecter, her admirer, her confidant, the person she could bear her soul to in a way Kate’s never seen come so naturally to two people. And she knows it’s in Tessa’s nature to want the best. So she understands how, when she’d felt every single part of herself be understood so completely, when she’d had every need and desire met so fully, she’d believe that anything else might be inferior, she does understand that, especially when she thinks about how long it took for Tessa to get to that point. She and Scott knew one another for the majority of their lives, poured their heart and soul into their shared dreams, and invested every part of themselves into their relationship, in all its iterations. And yet, anytime she’s asked Tessa about it, even back when Kate had known better, Tessa has always, always, insisted that she and Scott were nothing but friends and partners - business partners. She doesn’t understand why, if her daughter is so insistent on not claiming Scott as ever being hers in a romantic way, she’s so averse to the idea of dating or even entertaining the possibility of someone else. 

“Okay.” Kate says simply, and sees Tessa look up at her, like she’s expected something else. 

“What do you have planned then?” Kate asks, and Tessa’s face shows that that’s pretty much exactly the kind of question she’d anticipated. 

“I’m meeting some friends.” Tessa says, vaguely, “working on a few fun projects that I don’t normally have time for, going to take some dance classes, maybe yoga, and my photography club has a chapter here so…” 

Kate nods. “That sounds nice.” She’s trying to make it so Tessa doesn’t feel as though she’s being grilled. She doesn’t ever want to do that to her daughter, it had been so clear to her how much that had changed Tessa - the press - being asked such personal questions in such impersonal settings, that even now, she thinks her daughter has a hard time reconciling things like that. Even now, when it’s her own mother asking, she’s uncomfortable answering. Kate thinks about that a lot. 

Tessa’s not really sure of her plans, but she’d needed to make it sound like she was at least going to make an effort to get out of the house, to do something so her mother wouldn’t feel worried. It’s not that she doesn’t _want_ to do those things, it’s just that she hasn’t really thought about them yet. She doesn’t want her mother to think she’s going to be alone most of the month, which, in reality, had been Tessa’s plan. Her mother would worry that she’s sad.

She’s not _sad,_ she’s _thinking_. And by thinking, she’s finding a way to continue on. It’s productive, really. She wouldn’t allow it if it weren’t. She doesn’t have space or time for un-productivity in her life either. 

She doesn’t spend much time at her mum’s and she feels a little guilty for it. She’d stopped by before she’d even gone home, taken an Uber straight from the airport after getting in from the _other_ London, the one nearly six thousand kilometers, the span of an entire ocean and then some, away. 

She’d stopped and bought flowers on the way, poinsettias, because… Christmas, and had done her makeup in the back of the Uber with the red petals brushing her calf as she tried not to think too much about her surroundings. She wanted to look nice for her mother. She wanted to look grown up, put together, poised and competent - the way her mother always seems. She’d combed her airplane hair with her fingers, doing her best to work out the little knots she’d collected from sleeping, and made sure to fold her turtleneck up to cover the purple marks on her throat from the night previous. 

She’s not interested in _settling,_ but she does have needs. And those needs are better force fed quietly, in the darkness, preferably on another continent, but at the very least, certainly out of the half-judging, half-worrying eye of her mother. 

It’s not that she doesn’t want to spend more time with her mother, it’s just that she feels the bruises burning a hole through her turtleneck and she’s tired and just wants to cleanse her face of her war paint and crash into a bed which has been left untouched, immaculately made for months, just waiting for this moment, so she can bury herself in the bleached ivory and down, shut out the world around her and _decompress._ And not think about potholes for a while.  


* * *

December 4th - Scott

* * *

He’s feeling better about the whole thing, like maybe he _can_ do this. He has _things_ to say. He gives himself a little pep talk in front of the mirror as he brushes his teeth. _I got this._ He thinks. He’ll channel his inner Tess. He laughs to himself. If she only knew he was going to a _photography club_. 

He arrives slightly late, parks on the curb, makes his way up the snow laden sidewalk to the decent sized church, heavy looking blocks of limestone stacked on top of one another, greening slightly with age, holly bushes blooming. The main door is a high arch flanked by stained glass windows, shimmering in the freezing sun. It looks like something out of _Dracula_ he thinks, bemused, his breath a ghost in the air. He makes his way to the back of the church, a small parking lot, white lines for a kickball field, cracked pavement, a little decrepit cemetery. He enters the basement door, thick latticed glass for the window, a handle that contradictorily burns his skin it’s so cold from the air. 

He steps inside and rubs his hands together, trying to warm up. It’s drafty. 

He hears voices from down the dark hallway, sees a light on in one of the rooms on the right and makes his way down toward it. 

There must be twenty people milling about inside. It’s a basketball court on its lucky days, serves the catholic elementary school just next door for gym class and maybe the occasional game. The black lines on the floor marking zones, the hoops folded up toward the ceiling in their disuse. There are metal fold out chairs set out in a circle, a similarly architectured table at the back for refreshments. Coats are strewn about here and there, on the plastic bleachers at the edges of the room and padding the backs of the metal chairs. It smells like rubber, basement must, and coffee. It’s not a fancy club, and he likes that. They don’t even need cameras, everyone just uses their phone, apparently. 

He smiles to himself as he thinks of it, a photography club without cameras. 

But then he pauses. Because he sees her. 

She has her back to him, but he watches from the side as she lifts that bulky quadrilateral of cardboard that houses the Tim’s. He predicts her next movements, splash of cream, _check_. Dash of cinnamon, _check._ Two packets of sugar, _check and check_. And then she turns, catches the eye of an older gentleman who appears to be saying something to her about the coffee. She gives him those _eyes_ and that _smile_ , and Scott knows she’s faking it but it doesn’t matter because nobody’s ever been able to tell but him. She’s less than thrilled right now. Maybe doesn’t even want to be here at all. So why is she?

* * *

December 4th - Tessa

* * *

She’s worn another turtleneck. She does’t particularly like to, but presenting a room of complete strangers her regretful hickey isn’t generally the way she likes to form first impressions. 

She’s not even sure when it happened, the hickey. Well, obviously when she’d been having place-holder sex with the relative stranger she’d met in the hotel bar, but she means that she hadn’t felt him give it to her. She’d hardly felt anything at all that night and she hadn’t even been drunk. She normally wouldn’t allow it - a hickey. She thinks about this as she surveys the refreshments. It’s probably not the best sign that she’s so out of touch. It’s actually probably dangerous. She’s just scratching an itch but she thinks she needs to be more aware… Then she lifts that giant cardboard thing that holds the coffee and is happy to oblige when her thoughts pull her in another direction. _Is it bad to keep hot coffee in cardboard? What must they line the box with so that it doesn’t go all soggy?_

But then… 

_Probably nothing worse than the chemicals in those drugstore condoms you used…_

Ah, a one-eighty. Her anxiety has gotten quite good at that lately, almost like it’s following some sort of adaptive meditative flow, if not multitasking. 

She dresses up her coffee in the usual way, splash of cream, dash of cinnamon, two packets of sugar.  An older man approaches her in a crinkled blue-collared shirt under an argyle sweater vest, brown corduroy and beat up brown leather loafers on his lower half, his dark hair receding. 

“Timbits in the corner there, sweetheart.” He says. “I’m a double sugar man myself.” 

Tessa smiles sweetly. “It’s my guilty pleasure.” She says, tugging the neck of her sweater up and thinking that she has far worse guilty pleasures than sugar in her coffee. 

The man winks at her before reaching for a mini-doughnut and finding his seat. 

Tessa debates a bagel, but the rubbery scent of the gym rather turns her off so she just spins around to find a seat of her own. 

She’s sitting down, her Tim’s, sans plastic cap (because she knows it looks childish when she inevitably plays with the little plastic push-in buttons), settled snugly in her lap, warming her. She pulls it a little closer, settles it just over her womb which has decided to start bleeding a few days early. Cramps have never really bothered her, but when she feels stressed they’re worse. She’s definitely stressed, judging from the state of her uterus. 

She presses a hand there, to her lower abdomen, just briefly, before replacing it with the warmth of the coffee. She closes her eyes for a moment, enjoys the feel of it, while she lifts her head. And when she opens her eyes, she feels like she’s someplace else. Because there _he_ is… 

He’s just _sitting_ there, almost directly opposite her, an empty chair to his right, an older-looking woman to his left, one leg crossed over the other knee, taking up space but being respectful about it. 

_Surely it can’t be him, right? Her eyes must be playing tricks on her._

But no, it’s him, and he’s looking at her with that half-concerned face, forehead half-wrinkled, eyebrows raised and slightly pulled together, eyes wide and soft, lip worried. 

It’s that look that he used to give her just before he’d say, _What can I do?_ And she’d resist at first because she means it when she says her periods really _aren’t_ that bad. But invariably he’d lay down beside her and place his hand where it hurt. He’d mapped them out - all the places she hurt, over the years with her. And because it was _him_ , she’d give in, relax, and let him help. 

He knows all her tells and suddenly she feels completely _exposed_ , like her body is on display if he can really read it that easily.

And then _oh_ , she thinks, _why the fuck is he here anyway?_

She nearly spills the coffee in her lap when a sudden urge to adjust the collar of her turtleneck again overcomes her. 

When her eyes return to him, he’s smiling. 

She doesn’t know what to do and she doesn’t like the way her body reacts to him, the surprise of him, the way he’s smiling, by smiling back, but she does. She smiles back at him and she feels less alone and less bothered by her period and more aware of the little purple spot, covered by white cashmere, that somehow took up residency on her right mid-neck. 

He winks at her before their teacher takes the centre of the circle to begin chatting about exposure. 

_Fitting._ Tessa thinks to herself. 

They have a break a third of the way through class before members will get to show their projects for the week, and Tessa takes the opportunity to refill her coffee, hoping mostly for the warming affect on her contracting muscles again. 

She breezes past Scott to the refreshments table, but he’s there a moment after she is, reaching for a cup of his own. 

“Excuse me, ma’am.” He says as he reaches, and she narrows her eyes at him. _What? Is he trying to be cute?_

“Did you follow me here or something?” She asks, maybe sounding a little too territorial. She’d just wanted time to herself. 

“No, uh… you actually convinced me to join.” 

She cocks her head, narrowing her eyes further, one hand on her hip, the other wrapped around her empty cup. 

“Back in April.” He clarifies. “When we did that charity thing. You were talking about how cool it was so I thought I’d check it out. I didn’t expect you to be here. I - I thought you went to one in Toronto.” 

It’s the first hint of nervousness she detects from him - that tiny stutter - and it satisfies her to know she can make him nervous. 

She does remember that, now that he says it. 

“I’m here for a month.” She says. “So I thought it would be worth it to jump in. It’s the same organisation that runs the groups, so… go figure, I guess.” 

He nods. “A whole month, eh?” He reaches past her for the coffee, seeing as she’s decided to be distracted by him instead. 

“Yeah.” She says softly, her eyes focused on his hand as he unscrews the cap. She’ll never be able to erase his hands from her memory. She’s convinced they can do everything important - soothe, mend, soften, steady, hold, squeeze, caress, brace, pleasure… 

She watches the veins woking in tandem, each elevating at a specific time, attached to the lever of his wrist. And then his fingers, thick, strong, the pads soft, his nails trimmed, as he pulls the cap off. 

She realises a moment too late that he’s offering her the coffee because _of course he is._ It’s so Scott, and now he knows she’s been staring at his hands and he has that smirk on his face that frustrates her only because it turns her on, and she bets he knows _that_ too. But he doesn’t say anything as he takes her cup and pours for her and then himself. 

“Think that might be the longest you’ve been continuously here since we were kids.” He says. 

Tessa shrugs. She doesn’t think it is, but it must be close. 

“Sorry if I’m intruding on your photography club.” He says to her, handing her back the cup he’s poured. 

She shakes her head. “You’re not.” 

He looks down, pours his own cup and sets the cardboard box of what’s likely now chemically-laden coffee, down, brings it to his lips, the ones still turned up in that infuriating smirk, and takes a long sip. Straight black. It’s funny how their coffee preferences seem to be the opposite of their personalities. Him being as playful and charismatic as he is, she almost expects him to be the one to add cream and cinnamon and sugar, and she, being as straight-laced as he _insists_ she is, would be expected to take hers black. But here they are, him diving in lips first and her waiting to add her creamer. 

When he looks back up at her it’s different, soft, almost. “Good.” He says. “Wouldn’t want to overstep.” 

“You’re not.” She repeats, and he nods. 

“I have some ibuprofen in my jacket if it um… hurts.” He says, gesturing to her lower abdomen with the hand that holds his coffee, the black liquid sloshing slightly. She’s so surprised he’s actually acknowledged it that she thinks she forgets to blush. And then she realises that she’s not blushing because she _likes_ that he knows. And she _likes_ that he cares, and she _likes_ that he’ll still talk to her _period_ , even vaguely, after five years of small talk and ignored texts. 

“It’s okay.” She says softly, trying not to sound like her mind is spinning. 

“Okay.” He says. He sort of shuffles his feet, like he wants to say something but isn’t sure he should. She can read him just as well as he can read her. It gives her a little consolation. 

“Sorry, I don’t mean to…” He trails off, eyes angled downward. 

“Overstep?” She asks, breathily, the word leaving her mouth before even being processed by her brain. 

His eyes dart up to hers. 

“You’re not.” She says, and it seems to assure him. 

He smiles gently and she wishes he’d put his hands on her, _anywhere_ on her, but he doesn’t, probably still concerned about the overstepping. 

“So, do I get to see a Tessa Virtue original today?” He asks. 

“Oh.” She sighs and chuckles slightly, her eyes rolling to the side. “I don’t really like to show my pictures.” 

Scott smiles widely. “Yeah?” He asks, looking like his old playful self, “Why’s that?” 

Tessa can feel her face growing hotter. “It’s just… I don’t know. It feels very personal.” 

Scott nods. “That’s art though, T.” He says softly, his hand pressing forward, touching his cup to hers. “Or don’t you remember?” 

She nearly jumps when their cups make contact, but recovers, biting her lip. “I don’t know.” She says. 

“You don’t?” He asks. 

“I thought… this feels different.” 

“Yeah.” He says. He’s quiet for a moment, the sound of the chatter around them drowned out by Scott’s proximity. He’s always been something of a polarizing factor for her. 

“I’m here, though. So… that’s the same.” He says eventually. 

“Yeah, but we’re not…” She trails off this time. 

“I know.” He says, nodding. “But look at what you did on your own, eh? You’re doing amazing, T. I see you all over the place.” 

She’s equal parts surprised and completely expectant that their conversation has evolved this way. Their conversations have always been multi-layered these past few years, consisting of the surface level topic, and usually one or two undercurrents, topics they can’t quite find the way to address to each other outright. 

“I didn’t think it would feel like this.” She says, her voice wavering, nervous to be addressing the undercurrent more directly than the surface. 

Scott’s smile fades and she sees the pain in his expression, like he hadn’t expected her to say that at all. Isn’t it obvious to him that she isn’t happy? He can tell she has her _period_ for God’s sake, how can’t he see that she’s a mess?

“Tessa.” His voice sounds strangled in his throat. It’s funny to hear him use her full name like that. It’s been quite a while since she’s heard it from him. “I…” He trails off just as their instructor flicks the lights, signaling them back to their seats. 

* * *

December 4th - Scott

* * *

He sits in his cold metal chair with his lukewarm Tim’s in hand looking at her. What had she just said to him? She didn’t think it would feel like this? _Like what?_ He thinks. _Is she not happy? Is this not exactly what she’d wanted?_

He chews his lip and wills her to meet his eyes but she doesn’t. 

The room around them buzzes but all he can see is her. She’s set her coffee down beside her, is rummaging around in her messenger bag. It’s very businesslike, he thinks, something of a caliber he’ll likely never even care to own, but it looks good with Tessa. Because everything does. She’s in a cashmere turtleneck, white, with a pencil skirt, black, hugging the curves of her waist, a black leather belt with a golden buckle synched at her hips. He’s always known her body, first by feel and later by sight. He can undress her with his eyes in a second, see the way she looks in any number of combinations he dreams up in his head. They used to make a game of it - he’d pick something out for her, have her model it for him. He’d usually tear it off her in a matter of seconds, the sound of her laughter as she tried to escape his grasp spurring him on until he gave her what she’d wanted - held her down and forcibly removed every last scrap of fabric from her beautiful body, replacing the loss of their warmth with that of his own, kissing her, caressing her, until her laughs faded to whimpers which he liked to make hitch in her throat. 

The five years they’ve been apart have changed her slightly, but only for the better. Her hips are more accentuated, breasts fuller… she looks strong as ever, but also somehow softer in a way that makes him a little breathless. And of course, he doesn’t know her by feel any longer, so he can’t say these things for certain, but he thinks he can tell by sight. It’s funny how it’s the opposite now, and he thinks that he took _feel_ for granted all those years before he’d actually been able to _see_ her. 

She pulls a thin manilla folder from her bag, adjusts the neck of her shirt and crosses her legs, clad in black stockings, which he’s always liked on her for the way they show the definition of her muscles when the light hits them right. 

His eyes are on her calves for a moment before he looks up and realises she’s watching him now. He feels his stomach flip. That green gets him every time. 

He manages a wink at her and sees a smile pull at her pink lips as the instructor comes around, collecting prints to show. Tessa hands him hers and Scott tries to get a glimpse of it but he can’t quite see at the angle. 

Their instructor lines the prints up on a table, leaving a blank piece of paper under each. They’re critiqued _anonymously_ , only seen _anonymously_ , and she still hadn’t wanted hers shown. He chuckles softly and watches her blush, her eyes trained on her hands now. The room raises, crowds around the table, and Scott follows, hoping he’ll know which is hers. 

There’s a tree, photographed from below, the light shining through the leaves brightly. There’s a wall of graffiti, a little girl on a skateboard with a dog next to her. There’s a half-eaten bowl of cereal and an orange pill bottle, unscrewed, tiny blue pills inside. There’s an old woman in a rocking chair, smiling brightly as she knits in the winter sun. And then he pauses. There’s a woman, shrouded in shadow so he can just make out her silhouette, but he’d know it anywhere. The whole sight thing and whatnot. That’s her. That’s hers. She’s in a hotel room, the cold blur of city lights from the window in front of her the only thing that punctuates the darkness, the only thing that allows him to make out her form at all. She’s turned slightly, he can see the profile of her face, her hair amiss… tousled, he thinks with a shiver, her arm extended back, fingers splayed, like she’s running toward the window but looking back at the same time and he thinks he’s going to be sick because he _knows_ that feeling. He knows it so well. Being pulled forward, but desperate for the past, and caught somewhere in the darkness that makes up the middle. _Purgatory_. That’s what she’s called it, scrawled the title across the white wax border in black charcoal pencil.

He extracts himself quickly from the group crowded around the table, desperate to find her. His eyes scour the room, but she’s not there. 

He takes _Purgatory_ home with him, keeps the little paper of feedback taped on the back for her, doesn’t read it.

He sets the picture on his kitchen table and looks at it for a long while. 

He thinks about calling her. Then decides he shouldn’t. He thinks about texting her and comes to the same conclusion. 

He cocks his head as he observes the photo. He wonders how she took it. A self-timer? He wonders if someone was there with her. He notices the bed for the first time, the light from the window cast on the blankets, making them look like waves lapping at the shore. It’s clearly slept-in, _well_ slept-in at that, but Tessa wakes up that way even when she’s alone. He smiles to himself thinking back on it. He’d find her sleeping in bus seats that way, her things scattered all over, her arms over her head or her face, legs braced on the seat in front of her or draped over arm rests. She was never a restful sleeper so the state of the bed isn’t really indicative of whether or not she’d had company.

But he hopes she hadn’t. And then he doesn’t. Because he doesn’t want her to be like him. He does’t want her to feel the way he does when he thinks about her. It hurts too much and he does’t want that for her. 

But seeing her today and seeing this picture… he thinks maybe there _is_ something wrong. He thinks that maybe he’s read her wrong. It’s a whole different perspective, this _Purgatory_ , and he needs time to process what it means.

* * *

December 5th - Tessa

* * *

It’s three in the morning and she hates that she’s awake. She has a heating pad pressed tightly to her stomach and inexplicable tears in her eyes. She’s going to blame it on hormones because really, _when is her period ever this bad_? And why can’t she stop thinking about Scott? She’s trying to stop those thoughts by brainstorming ways to get herself back to sleep, her eyes shut tightly as she dreams up a scenario… but there he is again.

She knows he’d be pressed against her back, his hand right on the spot where the heating pad is, and she wouldn’t have that stupid purple bruise on her neck. 

She’d turn around and press her face into his shoulder and he’d be warm, like always, and he’d pretend she wasn’t crying for a while, for her sake, but eventually he’d hold her face in his hands and lean his forehead against hers and tell her _I know it hurts. It’s okay._ And that would make it better. Because it always had. Just him acknowledging her pain seemed to make it go away, like it was a monster lurking under her bed, and all he had to do was shine a light on it. 

Eventually they’d have sex because they usually always did when there were tears involved. It was like some weird aphrodisiac for both of them. Her vulnerability and his steadfastness. They’d had sex on her period plenty of times so she thinks maybe he wouldn’t mind now. And she thinks he’d probably still be as gentle as he’d been in the past. He was always gentle when she was on her period, but not always when she cried - not that that happened exceedingly often. But when it did, sometimes it just got so intense that neither of them could help it. There would be hands gripping possessively, lips kissing sloppily, teeth clipping desperately, their bodies on fire for one another. It would feel like he was claiming her from her sadness, so that it wasn’t even a part of it anymore, so that she wasn't even a part of _herself_ , so that she was a part of _him_ , instead, like he’d wanted it that way all along. And she’d be just as frantic for it. That sense of belonging and understanding, a heart she knew so intimately inside and out, a mind she trusted with all of the thoughts she could hardly bring herself to express out loud.So she wonders which he’d go for tonight, gentle or desperate, but knowing him, she thinks he’d be gentle with her. He wouldn’t mark her, there’d be no bruises left on her skin afterward, just the blood, sticky between her thighs and she thinks they’d wash it off together in the shower. And then he’d carry her back to bed and she’d feel better with him all over her instead. And _then_ she’d be able to sleep. 

She groans and rolls onto her back, opens her eyes and stares up at the ceiling. This doesn’t feel like _decompression._

She reaches for her phone, nearly dropping it on her face as she fumbles it, but recovers. 

_Come over._

She types it out in the little box under his name just to see what it’ll look like. 

The last time she’d texted him had been September 2nd. His birthday. 

_Happy Birthday! Hope it’s a great one!_

That’s what she’d said to him. It makes her cringe to read it now. 

_Thanks Tess. Hope you’re doing well._

He’d said back. Her heart wrenches in her chest. She hadn’t responded. She doesn’t like to lie to him.

Her thumb hovers over the little send arrow, but she knows she’s not going to pull the trigger. She doesn’t have the guts. And if he _didn’t_ come over, which she thinks is a real possibility, she thinks she might die. 

Sometimes, when they were sleeping, he’d drape and arm over her, slip it somehow under her arm and hold her breast. She used to think it was funny, like it was some immature vestigial part of his teenage self claiming her, saying _mine,_ even in his sleep _._ She turns back on her side, setting her phone down and holds her own breast the way he used to. It’s probably strange but before she can think too much about it, she falls back to sleep, the tears on her cheek absorbed into her pillow. They’ll be gone when she wakes. _It’s okay._

* * *

December 7th - Scott 

* * *

Three words - that’s what their instructor had said. Give three words as feedback to each photo, short and sweet. Tessa’s list is still taped to the back of her photo. He hasn’t read them. He thinks the instructor meant three adjectives, but he has a sentence. 

He gets drunk thinking about each word, the way they would sound as he whispered them into her ear in that hotel room. He’d have her pressed up against that window, against the cold blurry lights, he’d be able to feel the goosebumps on her skin, the down hair raised on her arms, her hot breath on his neck. He’d have that tousled hair in his hand, gripping tightly, the way she likes. 

One by one into her ear he’d speak them and she’d look up at him with those green eyes and he’d kiss her breathless, and when she’d need to breathe he’d just move on to another part of her until she’d be whining that soft little way she does, and he’d lift her and carry her to that tempestuous bed of hers and spread her out on the gentle waves of the covers.

He can feel the fabric of her bra, the release it brings her as he unclasps it, drags the straps down her arms, latches his lips first to one pretty pink nipple and then the other, making her gasp and pull on his hair. But he’d take his time, his fingers trailing down her sides, spiking those goosebumps once more, trailing back up and holding her sides as he moves his lips to the soft valley between her breasts and kisses her there. He’d take his time still, kiss his way across the gentle swell of each breast, and then down further, that little line she has running from her sternum to her navel, holding all the tension of her body. His hands move under her, cradle her back as she arches into him. He’d smile against her and she’d knot her hands in the bedsheets when she couldn’t get a hold of his hair. 

He’d make his way down between her legs, kiss her over the soft fabric covering her centre, make her gasp and then soothe her with a _shh._ She’d push herself up onto her elbows, look down at him with flushed cheeks and watch him as he pulled the last remaining bit of fabric from her, only to return his lips to her soft folds. He’d kiss her there gently, wait for her to beg him. But he’d give her whatever she wanted in the end because he always did, because that’s what he wanted her to have - whatever she wanted.

He buries his head in his hands, hunched over his kitchen table, her photo directly in front of him as he remembers what it feels like to be inside of her, to have her wrapped around him, mind, body and soul, like a vice. She’d milk everything from him, leave him limp and useless in her arms and then, with a kiss and that little rumble of a giggle she’d get after doing something so _bad_ , she’d breathe the life right back into him. 

_Fuck._ He says the word aloud, kicking the leg of the table and sending the empty beer cans rattling. He presses his thumb and index fingers into his eyes until he sees stars. _Fuck._ He says again, eyes stinging and wet, suddenly. 

_Fuck, Tess._

Her name feels distant as he says it, so he says it again as if it might bring her closer. _Tess._ He lets his hands fall from his face and hunches over further, leaning his forehead against the cool of the kitchen table, his hands finding the edge of her photo. 

_I understand it._ He says, his three words, fingers clutching onto it. 

Caught between _their_ past and _his_ future because he just can’t leave her behind. That’s exactly what this feels like. _Purgatory._


	2. Without

* * *

December 11th - Tessa

* * *

He’s there before her this time, a drawstring bag on his shoulder. He’s in sweats and she feels like it sends her through a rolodex of flashbacks when she sees him. 

“Hey.” She says to him, because there’s no use in avoiding him, nor does she want to.

Her period is over with, but she still cried last night. 

“Hey.” He says. 

Her hickey has faded, turned yellow and swept away back somewhere inside of her. All of the blood now, _neatly_ inside of her. Nothing for him to fret over. 

She wears a thick tan knit sweater with black leggings and boots, her hair down in waves, and she likes the way he reacts to her, his eyes turning soft the way they do. 

“Hey.” He says quietly, his voice hoarse. He looks pale. 

“Do I get to see _your_ photo this time?” She asks, pouring herself a cup of coffee. 

He chuckles. “Yeah.” He nods. “Yeah, I guess that’s fair.” 

She smiles and it feels nice for a moment.

“Do you want to sit with me?” He asks. 

She looks up at him and sees how it makes him tense. _He thinks she might say no._ She’s not going to say no. 

“Yes.” She says, and sees him relax.

They sit in silence for a while, the room filling around them, people and their big winter coats. 

“I really liked it.” He says, staring into the black of his coffee. 

It takes her a moment to realise he’s talking about her photo. 

“Oh.” She says, and scrunches her nose. “Really?” She thinks he’s probably just saying that.

“I um… Brought it with me.” He sets his coffee down beside him and lifts his bag, pulling a large envelope out and offering it to her. “I didn’t read your feedback. Just - It felt personal. But I did give you some.” He winks at her and smiles softly at him and takes the envelope, tucking it into her bag. 

_That_ felt personal? She wonders, but somehow knowing she was on her period hadn’t? She smiles and lets out a breathy laugh. “I didn’t take a photo this week.” She confesses. 

His eyebrows shoot up. “ _Tessa Virtue_ didn’t do her homework?” 

She smiles and waves him off. The assignment had been _city streets_ and Tessa, to be completely honest, couldn’t drag herself out of the house to do it. She’d have skipped this meeting if she hadn’t expected Scott to be here. She doesn’t feel like she’s doing a very good job _decompressing._

He must see something in her change because he adjusts himself in his chair, leans in closer to her and whispers lowly, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.” And he winks playfully. 

She smiles mischievously and sees how it changes him, his whole body straightening out. _He likes that,_ she thinks. 

They have fun, and Tessa remembers what it’s like to be in a learning environment with Scott - a fool’s errand. She can’t imagine how they’d ever managed to learn _anything_ at all, choreography included, with him raising his brow every time the instructor said something that even mildly bordered on dirty _\- slap, mount, grip._ It’s ridiculous and she nearly spits her coffee out when he looks at her like _neck strap_ is supposed to be scandalous just because she finds it so funny that he’s trying _that_ hard. 

She can tell how pleased he is that he’d done that to her. 

By the time they break she’s flushed with the efforts of retaining her laughter and heads out into the hallway to cool off with the help of the draft that seems to leak in readily from the outside. 

He follows her, she knew he would, his hands in the pockets of his sweats, his head angled downward, hair falling onto his face. 

He puffs his cheeks out. “Jeez, Virtch, you gotta keep it togeth-“ 

She can’t. She can’t keep it together. She presses her hands to his chest, the surprise of it causing him to stop talking mid sentence. She leans her weight against him until he’s flat against the cheap, wood-paneled wall painted white, but appearing gray in the dim fluorescent light, and kisses him. 

It’s hot and needy and she thinks she moans softly into his mouth when his hands find her hips. She pulls on his hair, deepening it, deepening everything, and he grips her tighter. 

She thinks Scott may have been the only real choice she’s ever made. She’d chosen him and that meant everything else was decided. She’d chosen him knowing it would be that way. She’d chosen him and she’d had choices. Lots of them. But she’d chosen him because he _was_ her choice. 

And she remembers exactly how well he’d known that. 

After they’d won in Pyeongchang, after the gold and the applause and all the prying eyes were shrouded by the darkness of her room, empty but for she and him, he lay on top of her. His weight grounding her to reality so she didn’t float away. She remembers him pressing kisses to her face. Not quickly, the way it usually happens when people want to paint your whole face in them, but slowly, deliberately, like each one meant something individually. _Thank you for picking me, thank you for believing in me, thank you for the pain, thank you for your body, thank you for trusting me, thank you for holding my hand even when I didn’t deserve it, thank you for forgiving me, thank you for loving me, thank you for being my partner._

It felt like a hundred little butterflies landing on her face and she cried, they both did. It was too much in that moment, everything was too much. They cracked, finally, ecstatically, desperately, and bled into one another. 

Tessa thinks that if life were a movie, which she’s often wished it were, she’d be long gone. She thinks her reel would have ended as he pressed those kisses to her face. That would have been it. She’d have been happy there. She had everything in that moment. If the tape would have just run out, the screen cut to black, the credits rolled, she wouldn’t have had to lose anything. She would have been _done_. She _had_ been done. Everything she’d wanted to do, she’d achieved. How was there supposed to be more? How was she supposed to do more?

She thinks about it often, how dissimilar life is to the movies. It doesn’t matter if you’ve achieved the goal of your life. Movies aren’t real life. So the time just keeps ticking, mundanity overwhelms you. You have to get sick again, go grocery shopping, do laundry, tie your shoes, all as if none of it even happened. 

You have to lose things, lose your way, your happiness, your partner, even. 

He called her princess once - twice actually, somewhere in the sickness part of the mundanity while in Japan. The hotel workers would call her that, and she typically would have hated it, but she couldn’t bring herself to, they were so sweet and genuine about it. 

It was impersonal, distant and playful until she heard the word formed by _his_ mouth. She’s not sure if he was only trying to make her laugh, like he was her _own_ hotel worker in that moment, _at her service_ , or if he had some other motivation. 

It didn’t make her laugh. 

She’d just woken up from a nap, sleeping off a fever somewhere in Kansai, she isn’t even sure which city, and he’d stroked her hair and just said it softly, “Hey, princess.”

She hadn’t even responded, her brain sleep-addled and her body fever-wracked, but she’d pushed herself up enough to reach for him from the bed. He’d been on his knees, and pressed himself forward to hold her, run his hand over her back. 

And that’s when she thought of her parents, how they’d treat her the same way when she was sick so many years ago. 

Except, she’d realised, _Scott_ feels like home. 

She loves her family, but Scott’s been her home for so long now. She feels safe with her hand in his and his heart beating with hers. It doesn’t matter how many oceans or continents or flights away from anywhere they are. 

_This is what being cared for feels like,_ she remembers thinking. And for a moment she thought that maybe her storyline _hadn’t_ ended in Pyeongchang. Maybe she hadn’t run out of script. Maybe there really was more to life than just being the best at something.

She’d woken up again in the middle of the night and he’d been there, holding her. She’d asked him for water, which he’d gotten her - from a bottle, not the tap - and had helped her set it down afterward because she’d been so out of it she knows she’d have spilled it everywhere. She’d settled back into his arms without complaint, without a thought as to whether he wanted her to or not, her being as clammy and contagious as she was. But she needed him, and she knew he would be there. 

“Scott.” She remembers fuzzily telling him, her voice weak, “Say it again.”  She’s not completely sure why she’d wanted to hear it from him again, but she had.

“Say what, princess?” He’d asked in a whisper, his arms around her tightly. He knew what she was referring to. He was joking in his way but giving her what he knew she wanted anyway. He always did. 

The word just sounded so different that night, the edges of her consciousness frayed by fever, darkness, Scott’s warmth. 

She felt him smile against her forehead. 

_This is what being cared for feels like._

And so somewhere in Kansai, oceans and continents and flights away from wherever, laying in the arms of her home, the thought had been pulled into orbit, that maybe there was a sequel.

* * *

December 11th - Scott 

* * *

If Sochi was Scott’s Waterloo, a complete and disastrous comedown, then Pyeongchang was Tessa’s. 

He’d felt like there was too much possibility afterward and Tessa felt like there wasn’t enough. It’s funny how they do things like that - same but different. 

Vancouver - the original - was the best. It was validation, not an end. They’d learned to respect one another, hadn’t felt like the weight of their careers was too much to bear just yet. He’d treated her poorly after Sochi and he’d been too attentive after Pyeongchang. Things had just gotten more complicated. And yet, he thinks he prefers his last iteration. _Their_ last iteration. It’s the comeback, where the heroes finally redeem themselves. It was glorious fight to the very end, where he’d even gotten the girl… at least for a while. Sometimes he thinks of them - Sochi and Pyeongchang as sequels. So he’s not sure if that means he’s living in a sequel now, but if he is, this one sucks. 

The problem with sequels is that they’re never as good as the original. 

It’s just hard when he can’t talk to her like he used to. She’d been his best friend for so long. He’d never been able to adjust to having her out of his life. 

He’d seen a therapist for a while, who’d told him that he needed to allow the possibility if he’d wanted to actually see if he could adjust. 

He resents that. 

What is flirting with, dating, fucking other women if not allowing the possibility of adjustment? What is hardly talking to her outside of engagements they’ve committed to?  What is knowing that she’s literally twenty minutes away right now, and not driving to her house?  That’s entertaining the possibility of adjustment in his book. 

And he’s pretty sure, after all these years of brutal entertainment, that he’s just doomed to a life of settling. 

Tessa never settles. She never settles for a single thing. Not one single thing. She won’t settle for a car she loves if it doesn’t have the little button on the back that you can hit with your foot to open the trunk (even though he knows she’ll never actually use the feature), she won’t settle for Parmesan on her pasta (she’ll go out and get the Parmesan and Romano), She won’t settle for soap that doesn’t meet her every standard (equal parts moisturizing and fragrant - but only through the use of essential oils, nothing synthetic), and she won’t settle for _him_. 

And that’s okay. He’s okay with that for her part. He never wants her to settle. He never wants her to settle for a single thing. Not one single thing. He wants her to have that little button on the back of her car (no matter how little she uses it), he wants her to have the right ratio of Parmesan to Romano on her pasta, he wants her to have the perfect mixture of fragrantly moisturising soap, and he wants her to find someone who can make her fully and completely happy, even if it’s not him. 

He’d thought she’d be his sequel, he really had. But it makes sense when he thinks about it that she’s not. If sequels never rival the original, of course it wasn’t meant to be. He thinks being with Tessa would beat out every single positive experience he’s ever had. Easily. 

So of course she’s not his sequel. And he just has to accept the fact that anything else is settling. And it’s inevitable.

But then he thinks there are always exceptions. _Spiderman, Batman, Star Wars, Mission Impossible._ The sequels were even better than the originals. Pyeongchang hadn’t been _awful._ It had been pretty nice for a while. 

Presently, when she kisses him, he thinks _they_ could be an exception too. 

It takes him off guard, but only slightly. They’ve always been attracted to one another, that’s not really a question. It’s the fact that Tessa’s actually _acted_ on it after five years of insisting that they shouldn’t. 

He’d gotten drunk at parties they’d been to, touched her maybe a little too much. She’d always been gracious about it, never made him feel embarrassed or like she pitied him. She wasn’t always perfect either, she liked to make him jealous, liked to tease him from time to time. She likes the way he looks at her. Sometimes she’ll still walk out of wardrobe in her bra just because she likes to see his reaction. And it’s not that he’s even playing along, he really can’t help reacting to her, even when he knows he’s just feeding into it. He can’t help it and he doesn’t want to. She knows he has a thing for her, and he knows she does for him as well… as much as she tries to hide it… which isn’t much right now, apparently. 

God, her lips are so soft, even as she kisses him as hard as she is. He’d been afraid he’d forgotten her somehow, forgotten what it felt like to be with her. What would that mean, to forget Tessa? Has anyone ever forgotten her? Has anyone been able to? How, he wonders, could someone look into those eyes, be within earshot of her sweet voice, have her touch their arm in that way she does, and _forget?_ He doesn’t think it’s possible. He’s relieved now, to have the confirmation at least for himself - it’s not possible. It’s not possible for him to forget her. 

But he does feel the ways in which she’s changed - more softness, mostly. How her breasts feel warmer, pressed to his chest, how his hands mould even more readily to her hips. And when she moans into his mouth his eyes squeeze shut even tighter. She’s going to ruin him, right here in this hallway, she’s going to kill him. 

Her hands tighten on his shoulders and then one moves up his neck and into his hair and he has goosebumps. 

But then they hear the scraping of chairs and everything comes back into focus as he feel the warmth of her body leave his. He’s left standing there in a daze, in the dim, drafty hallway, his hands suddenly feeling more empty than he thinks they ever have. 

He stares at the wall opposite him, trying to collect himself, trying to process what had just happened. It hadn’t been his imagination, had it? 

He takes his time, waits for his body to stop shaking like a live wire and for his heart to stop racing before returning to the gymnasium. Tessa’s there, in her seat, sitting elegantly with her ankles crossed. But her cheeks are pink and her lips are red and she won’t make eye contact with him. So he definitely hadn’t imagined it. 

Their instructor talks for another five minutes. Scott hears none of it. He keeps trying to meet her eyes, she’s determined not to let him. 

When the group gets up to view photos, he grabs her wrist. “Talk to me.” He growls. 

She blinks up at him and she looks fine one moment, and terrified the next. Before he can do anything, before he can talk to her or find a way to make it better, to ease whatever might be making her feel that way, she’s pulled away from him. 

“I’m sorry.” He hears her say, her voice breaking, as she collects her things, boots clicking on the hardwood gym floor. 

He just stands there, watching her go. What else can he do? _What the fuck does she want him to do?_

* * *

December 12th - Tessa 

* * *

She wakes up on her sofa, face pressed into a pillow, pushes herself up and blinks into the darkness as she reaches her hand down to pull her phone up off the floor. 2a.m.

She groans and flips herself over, dropping her phone back down, her hand brushing the leather of her bag as she does. She doesn’t even remember the drive home, is just glad she’d gotten herself here safely, dropped everything and fallen on her sofa, cried herself to sleep. She must’ve been out cold for hours. 

Her hand brushes the cool leather again. It feels soothing. And the she touches something papery, the envelope he’d given her with her photo… with his feedback. 

She flicks on the light beside her, squints as her eyes adjust while she digs the envelope out of her bag, and pulls the photo from it, paper taped to the back. She doesn’t spare her work a passing glance, all she cares about is what he’s said about it. 

There are words all over the back, adjectives in threes, scrawled in stranger’s writing. _intriguing, different, depressing,_ and _dark, ominous, salacious,_ and, _sad, soft, wanting._ Her eyes scan over them, stinging from the pain of reading them, how nobody can ever seem to relate to her intention, and then, _I understand it._ In his hand writing, at the very bottom. She imagines him trying his hardest to avert his eyes from the other’s comments. She’s not sure why he’d thought she’d care if he read them, but knowing that he hadn’t makes his words mean even more. A full sentence, not just three words strung together. He understands it. Her purgatory. She’s unsure why she thought he wouldn’t. She’d just thought he’d have moved on by now, that there’d be more for him, that she’d fucked up one too many times, that she was alone. But she’d never been alone. Even in her pain. Even when they were apart. Even now. 

She holds it to her chest, wishes he could draw his fingers over her, write the words on her skin so she could physically _feel_ them. 

_He understands it._

She texts him. 

** _Tessa: I want to see your photo._ **

* * *

December 12th - Scott 

* * *

There’s only one person he knows is going to be up at this time of night and it’s Tess. When his phone lights up, vibrates beside him, he knows it’s her, and he can’t reach out for it fast enough. He feels lucky that he hadn’t been sleeping - as if that were even an option. Part of him knows she knew he wouldn’t be. 

She’s the restless one but she can make him just as restless. 

** _Tessa: I want to see your photo._ **

He laughs when he sees it. Nothing about the kiss, about her leaving him there. It’s so _Tess_ and he loves it. He laughs out loud, the corners of his eyes crinkling because he can see her saying the words, her arms crossed, eyes intense, nose upturned, almost _daring_ him as much as she’s _demanding._

He’s never denied her. 

He sends it to her, just the photo, nothing else, and waits. 

* * *

December 12th - Tessa

* * *

She thinks he’ll be awake. She’ll feel badly for it, if he is. She’s not under the impression that she has that much power over him, but they do have a history, and a kiss like that after five years of wayward glances and wrung hands meant something. She knows he felt it too. 

She’s not really sure what came over her, just that she couldn’t stand to _not_ be kissing him in that moment.

And it hadn’t disappointed. He’d felt as strong and sturdy and gentle as she remembers him. But when he’d held her wrist and demanded an explanation she just couldn’t handle it. She can’t tell him she regrets what happened between them, she can’t tell him she wants to take it back, she can’t tell him she wishes they’d never parted at all. 

Because she doesn’t. 

She learned so much about herself as an individual and she thinks if she hadn’t had that time she would have resented him. 

But now she wants more. And it feels selfish because she knows how hard it had been for him and she has no idea where he stands because they absolutely refuse to talk about it, both of them fearful of what they’ll learn. And she’s _terrified_ of herself and _terrified_ of hurting him again.

But then he texts her. 

And she stops thinking so much and just looks. 

His photo is black and white, a Toronto street, looks like the financial district. She wonders why he was there. The subject is a man in dress pants and shoes, mid stride, his heather coat thick on his shoulders. His arm is outstretched to something out of frame, maybe a crossing light or a cab, maybe a person, even. And his head is cut out as well, missing from the top of the frame. 

She loses her breath when she sees it, staring at her phone until the light fades and she has to tap it again. She does this at least five more times, just staring, until she can bring herself to text him again. 

** _Tessa: Title?_ **

He texts her back not a minute later, 

** _Scott: Without._ **

She sobs as soon as she lays eyes on the word. It’s unlike her, to be this emotional. This whole time she’s been home, this whole supposed _decompression_ has been unlike her. 

But that word - _Without_. _She_ understands _that_.

She holds one of the throw pillows beside her to her chest and tucks her knees up under herself, making herself small. It hurts. 

* * *

December 14th - Scott

* * *

It’s been two days since he’s heard from her, since he’d sent her the title of his photo. He’s not really sure what to think and it takes all of his restraint not to text her. 

“Have you talked to Tess at all?” His mother asks him as he’s helping her in the kitchen, getting ready for one of their Christmas parties. 

“Tess?” He asks. “No.” His heart is pounding in his chest at the mention of her name, like maybe his mother had heard him thinking about her. 

“Well, I invited Kate tonight.” His mother says, “And she said Tessa’d love to come too.” 

Scott can tell that his mother’s excited to see Tessa. It’s been ages, and his family really does love her. 

“She’s coming?” He asks, trying not to sound as surprised as he is, but his mother knows because she was surprised as well. She nods.

“Oh.” Is all he can manage as he walks away, completely forgetting his task of peeling the apples for her pie. 

He finds his way up to his old room, sits on the bed stares at the wall. 

When they were teenagers he’d asked his mother the same question, “ _She’s coming_?” He’d been referring to his thirteenth birthday party, and of _course_ she was coming, but he’d been embarrassed, thinking of the way his friends would make fun of him hanging out with someone so young. 

He smirks to himself. Ever since then he’s been _hoping_ Tessa will come to his parties. She wasn’t really a party _person,_ but she could make herself into one, because she could make herself into anything. And for the right person she would. And he didn’t like to ask things of her, but as they got older it meant something when she’d come to his parties. 

Four years ago, after everything happened between them and they’d spent nearly a full year apart, she came to his grandfather’s funeral. He hadn’t expected her to and it meant so much to him that she had. He remembers the way she’d held his hand, like she’d never let go in the first place. Just held it tightly without even saying anything. He’d cried, and she’d somehow corralled him into a closet because he didn’t want people to see him that way. And she’d held his face in her hands and wiped away his tears, and when he’d tried to kiss her she’d pulled him in for a hug instead of pushing him away completely, held the back of his head and let him sob into her shoulder. 

She smelled like mint and daisies that day, her hair cut shoulder length and wavy, her body sheathed in a tight black dress with a square neckline that hit her mid-knee. 

“I need you.” He’d said, and she’d stroked his hair. “I’m here.” She’d told him. And it’s not what he’d meant, but he realised that they weren’t like that anymore, that she didn’t want to be, and that made him cry harder.

It’s the first time he’d really expressed how much it hurt him that she was gone, and he doesn’t even know if _she_ knows that’s why he was crying so hard or if she thinks it was because of his grandfather. He’d loved his grandfather, but he’d been crying for her.

* * *

December 14th - Tessa

* * *

She plays random moments over in her head sometimes. Today, as she drives to his house, she thinks back to their early twenties, darting her eyes downward to a little knick on his jaw from shaving while they were sat at a press conference. It was shiny and red and she thinks it probably felt less than comfortable. Maybe it had that weird itchy feeling that tiny new wounds sometimes do just so you can’t forget they’re there. She wanted to kiss it for him. She wanted to press her lips together, lean forward and kiss him right on that shiny red spot because she thought it would help. She thought she could make it better - or at least stop it hurting for a while, that’s all. She hadn’t wanted to make out with him or anything. She wasn't going to try and rip his shirt off, she'd just wanted to soothe that little red spot that she thought was probably nagging him. He’s her partner after all, and everything that affects his body affects hers too. It hadn’t been romantic, she hadn’t meant it that way. It was just the nature of the sport. She’d needed her partner to be healthy and comfortable and happy or she couldn’t be any of those things. 

So, in her flashback, they’re sitting there in silence, the room milling about, filling in the background. Everything’s always in the background - she pushes it there. It’s easy, she’s used to that. She’s used to having that pinpoint focus on him. That’s her headspace, that’s where she’s comfortable.

She rests a hand on his thigh and he doesn’t expect it because _that’s_ not really the nature of the sport. It’s not really supposed to be like that off the ice, but it sometimes is, because it’s the nature of their partnership. 

He looks down at her and she lets her eyes dart down to that red spot again. 

“You cut yourself.” She says softly, examining the rest of him. 

He nods. “Occupational hazard.” He says, and he smiles at her. She wonders what it would be like if he didn’t shave. Of course he has to, that’s what he meant by the comment. That’s also the nature of the sport. He always has to be clean shaven. But she thinks she likes him that way anyway. She thinks he looks good like that and she likes the way his skin is soft when he presses it against hers, not like others who’ve pressed their cheeks against hers only to scrape at her with their stubble. But if he _wanted_ stubble, she thinks maybe she could get behind it. Maybe. She tries to keep an open mind about that kind of thing. 

“Does it hurt?” She asks, her voice low, and he looks back down at her. She blinks up at him and sees the way his face changes, goes softer. 

“It’s okay.” He says, and he smiles at her and places his hand over hers on his thigh. 

She exhales deeply though her mouth and he leans over. “You look really pretty.” He whispers in her ear. 

He tells her that in front of people. He calls her pretty, beautiful, amazing, talented, smart - all in front of other people, so she’s not sure why it feels so different, so much _better_ when he whispers it in her ear like he’s trying to tell her a secret. She thinks perhaps it’s because it’s just for her. Like, when he tells others, he’s _praising_ her, but when he tells her specifically, he’s just _telling_ her, like it affects him. And she likes knowing that, that she can _affect_ him. Because he’s Scott Moir, and hardly anything gets to him. The thought that she can somehow do that without even having tried makes her blush. 

She meets his eyes and sees the way he smiles at her, like he’s proud because he’s said something to make her blush. 

“I don’t want to be here.” She says, and he knows it, and he laughs. She likes the way he laughs, in understanding and sympathy and camaraderie, because he doesn’t really either, he only hides it better. 

“Just do the thing.” He says, “If you don’t want to answer something, okay?” 

She nods, looks down at where the tablecloth swallows up their legs. She feels him shift, hears the plastic-covered cushion of his chair squeak slightly as he leans toward her, feels his breath on her neck, her ear. “Would you want to come over afterwards?” He asks earnestly, hopefully. 

She turns her head and she shouldn’t, knowing how close she is, but she does, and their foreheads nearly touch, their noses nearly brush, and Scott doesn’t pull back, just waits for an answer. 

“I have ice cream.” He says, when she takes a beat longer than he hopes she will. 

She smiles. She knows he does things like that for her - makes up some excuse like he needs to bribe her to come over, so she won’t have to admit to herself that she just wants to go over because she _wants_ to, because _he’s_ there, not because there’s ice cream or her favourite movie or a good book he’s just finished. She thinks maybe it’s enablement, the way he so carefully constructs these scenarios so she can satisfy that nagging little voice in her head that tells her they shouldn’t do this, that she shouldn’t allow herself to feel the way she does. She thinks he enables her to keep on thinking that way but she also thinks that it’s because he cares and he knows her so well. It’s because he knows she needs to think that way or none of this will work and everything they do publicly will be entirely too real for her. 

So she smiles back and nods and hopes that it doesn’t hurt him that he needs to do things like that. Because she does worry sometimes, if all of her little rules aren’t unlike the cut on his jaw - tiny, almost imperceptible at times, but _there_ , stinging so that they’re impossible to ignore, impossible to forget about even when the two of them are together, _alone._ Even when Tessa doesn’t even eat the ice cream or watch the movie or ask about the book. She hopes that their having these tiny barriers between them don’t hurt him the way they sometimes hurt her, even if she’s the one putting them there. 

“Cool.” He says, and winks at her before turning to face the room that’s started to quiet around them. 

Tessa keeps her eyes on him for a while longer. She knows he knows she’s watching him and he’s got a little smile on his face because of it, and she’s glad she can put that there sometimes, hopes it’s enough for him. 

She does do the thing when she doesn’t want to answer a question, just leans her leg a bit to the right, presses her knee against his. He straightens up immediately, as if he’s suddenly on duty, a soldier ready for battle. She tries to hide her smile at the thought. 

The question is directed at her purposefully, slipped in after a compliment on her dress. People tended to do that, slip these questions in right after complimenting her. Tessa speculates it’s because they think the flattery will get them something in return. But she _hates_ the question and it’s almost inevitable. 

_Has anyone ever told you two you’d be great together?_

She forces a laugh as Scott shoots back, “You know someone might have mentioned that to us at some point.” He turns to Tessa and gives her a look, which makes everyone laugh, and they laugh along with them, she and Scott, except it’s not really with them, it’s with each other. And the joke is that none of those people would be able to understand their relationship, even if she and Scott decided to pull out a projector and spell it out for them piece by piece. And Tessa loves that. She loves that nobody can worm their way in to that. Because people can sneak up on them while they’re in the other’s arms, or read their lips while they’re on the ice, or invade their little bubble a million times over, but nobody can ever really and truly understand what it _means_. It’s their own language of touches and looks and laughs and breaths and a million other things that they’ve cultivated over the course of their lives. And nobody will ever have the tools to decode it but them. 

She smiles to herself as she pulls up to his parent’s house. It looks just the same as it used to. It’s been quite a while since she’s visited. 

She knows her mother’s here. Tessa planned specifically to get here after her just so she’d have someone to talk to in case she needed it. She feels silly for thinking that way, having known most of these people all her life anyway, but it feels different suddenly - scary, because it’s been so long. 

But she’s greeted like she’d never even left. Scott’s parents, brothers, nieces and nephews, a few friends she recalls from long ago, uncles and aunts. Her mother. 

And then there he is, leaned up against the kitchen island nursing a beer, giving her that signature smirk. 

“Virtch.” He nods at her. She can tell he feels as exposed as she does right now, the entire place watching them from the corner of their eye, especially their parents. 

But she falls into place next to him just as she always has. 

He leans his head closer to her. “You look good.” He says and she smiles. “You too.” She says. He’s in dark jeans with a maroon dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

“Merry Christmas.” He says, winking at her and she blushes and nods. “Merry Christmas.” 

His jaw is squared, like he’s bracing himself for something and she wishes she could touch him, just to relax him a little. She thinks it would still work - her hand on the back of his neck - to pull the tension from him, settle him a bit. 

“You owe me feedback.” He says, turning his whole body toward her. He’s so close. _Do people think it’s strange how close he is?_ She doesn’t bother looking around to see if they do. She doesn’t want to know because she doesn’t want to adjust. She tilts her head up, smiles slightly and opens her mouth to speak. 

“Hold that thought.” He says, and she blinks at him. He leaves her there, right arm on the kitchen island, head tilted up at the spot he used to be, the lights suddenly seeming too bright. She feels her face flush and a rush of panic comes over her. _What the fuck am I doing?_ She thinks. _What’s the goal here?_

She’s not sure. She hadn’t really thought much about it. Her mother had wanted her to come, _she’d_ wanted to come. So she’d come. So she’s here. But he’s not suddenly and she feels like she’s going to suffocate. 

“Here you go.” It’s his voice and she can breathe again. He’s back occupying his spot next to her, mirroring her posture, fingers pushing a glass of wine across the marble toward her. “Thought you were a little empty handed there.” He says and then he smiles playfully and makes her heart beat two times too fast. “And maybe plying you with alcohol’ll get you to go easy on me, eh?” 

She eyes him and trying to recover her composure, lifting the glass to her lips and watching the way his eyes focus in on her action, the way he licks his lips when she touches the glass to her own and sips. 

They’re pulled apart multiple times that night, involved in innumerable conversations, yet their eyes keep searching for one another, finding one anther across the room. How far they’ve come, she thinks, these questions they’re being asked, answered individually now. They can do it. She thinks they always could have. She’d always known Scott could, but now she knows that she can too. She doesn’t need to do the things anymore because she’s learned how to answer the questions without him. But it’s just better when they’re together. So she can’t help looking for him. He doesn’t look away when their eyes meet, when she catches sight of him and he’s already watching her, waiting for her to find him. They hold each other’s gaze while they can and then they move on. 

She’s on her third glass of wine when they finally find their way back to one another in the kitchen. 

“Here.” He says, offering her a cookie this time.

She takes it from him and watches his eyes again as she brings it to her lips, bites into it. 

He smiles softly as she eats it. 

“There’s more.” He says, turning to go and find her some, but she grabs his wrist as he turns, just as he’d done to her the other day. 

He turns to face her again, his eyes searching hers, trying to decipher what it is she wants. 

“You’re. Not. Alone.” She says, her three words, because she thinks that’s how he feels - _alone_ in his pain. He’s not. She has it too, that same kind of pain that _absence_ brings. Nagging at times, like that little knick he’d had on his face from shaving so many years ago, and crippling at others, like the anxiety she’d felt when she’d been taken off guard by an intruding question.

He looks hurt when she says it, pale and tired suddenly and she wonders if she’s said something wrong. Maybe he’s sick of her at this point, sick of her games, doesn’t understand her motivations, no longer has the tools do decode them. That would be fair, she thinks. She’s not totally sure of them herself. She’s never sure of herself and it’s been a long time. She wouldn’t hold it against him if he’s forgotten or if he simply doesn’t want to give her the opportunity to hurt him again. 

He swallows hard, blinking rapidly. “Can you come with me?” He asks, his voice low. “Please, Tess?” 

She’s just staring up at him, can’t get the words out, so she just nods, and he takes her hand. It feels like he’s never let go of it. 

* * *

December 14th - Scott

* * *

He pulls her gently but firmly to the back door, out onto the deck, leads her down the stairs to the overhang of it, the darkness punctuated by the Christmas lights that line the perimeter of the house and the warm golden light filtering from the windows. He presses her up against the house, hidden under the deck in the shadow of darkness, his whole body shaking from the cold and the nerves, but she hasn’t made him feel like she doesn’t want this. She’d been the first one to do it. 

It’s probably stupid, something they’d do when they were kids, but he doesn’t care and neither does she, he thinks. 

His forehead presses against hers, their bodies flush together as he holds her at her hips, a feeling he’ll never tire of. He tries to cover as much of her with himself as possible, hoping she’s not cold, but she doesn’t seem like she is, even thought it’s freezing and she’s in just her dress. It’s evergreen with sleeves that cut off midway down her arms, a hem that hits her mid thigh. Her hair is doing that thing it does when she doesn’t dry it, loose dark curls that he wants to twist his fingers around. 

He nuzzles her cheek, his lips against her ear and she touches him for the first time, her hands on his biceps. 

“You look so pretty, Tess.” He says, his voice shaking. He’s been telling her that for so many years now but he genuinely means it every time. 

He feels her hands move to his shoulders, grip the fabric of his shirt tightly. Her breath hot on his cheek.

He turns his face and kisses her cheek softly, feeling faint, like he doesn’t know quite how to handle this. But she turns then and lips slot together like two opposite poles snapping back to one another. 

His eyes shut tightly as he feels the pain of it, of being shown once more what he’s missing, bubbling up in his chest. 

Her hands are all over him, in his hair, on his chest, nails raking over his abdomen though his shirt - she’s everywhere - and the taste of her in his mouth is overwhelming. His hands move to her hair and she arches into him and purrs, and he flashes back to a million times before. When he pulls apart, she leans in after him, trying to capture his lips again, but he stills her with a hand on her cheek. She opens her eyes and looks up at him. He runs this thumb across her lower lip, soft and red. “I don’t want you to feel like I do.” He says and shakes his head. “It’s not right. You didn’t ask for that.” 

She shakes her head at him. “Neither of us did.” She says, her lip moving under his thumb. He drops his hand to hold the base of her neck, thumb caressing her pulse there, instead. 

They hear laughter coming from inside and Scott huffs a laugh of his own but Tessa looks sad. And he can’t stand that. 

“We had a good run.” He says. “It’s okay.” He doesn’t want her to feel guilty for moving on. It’s not her fault. 

But it doesn’t help. Her eyes are teary. “Tess.” He says softly, holding her face in his hands now. He strokes her cheek but she pushes his hands away and then pushes at his chest until he gives her her space. She looks at him for a moment, like she’s confused, and then she walks away. And he feels just like the man in his photo - _Without._


	3. Shame

* * *

Dec 14 (11:00pm) - Scott

* * *

He watches her the rest of the night and he can tell she intentionally avoids his eye. She doesn’t want anything to do with him after that. She doesn’t say goodbye when she leaves, and when his mother asks, as he’s helping her tidy up, how things had been with Tess, he answers her curtly and leaves the room. 

But he does show up at her house later that night, after he’d left his parent’s, well past midnight. He texts her, standing outside her door. 

** _Scott: Open your door._ **

She doesn’t answer. He knows she’s not sleeping. 

_**Scott: I know you’re not sleeping.** _

** _Tessa: I’m taking a bath. Let yourself in._ **

He walks around back pulls the spare key her mother insists she keeps out from under the fake rock she’d gotten for it, unlocks the double doors in the back and heads upstairs, letting the key clatter on the kitchen counter in his haste. 

He kicks his shoes off at the top of the stairs, realising he’d forgotten to do so upon entering, and he pads into her room in his socks. 

It’s how he remembers it, white, some grey. Hardly lived in, the way she likes it. 

Her suitcase is pushed neatly against the wall by her bed, her hairbrush on the nightstand, her bed made up pristinely. 

There’s a picture of them, Mahler, on her bureau, along with one of she and her siblings and mother.

He approaches the door on the opposite side of the room. “Tess?” His hand wavers, pausing over the cool brass doorknob. 

“What do you want?” She asks. “You could have just called.” 

“No.” He says. “I couldn’t have.” 

“Why?” Her voice is quiet and he can hear the way she’s upset, hates it. 

“Because.” He says. 

“Because why?” She asks, and he smiles softly. It reminds him of the arguments they had as children. 

“Because I wanted to see you.” He says. 

“Why?” She insists. 

He hears the bathwater slosh and imagines seven year old Tessa, crossing her arms, pouting her lips. 

“Because I… I miss you, Tess.” 

She’s quiet on the other side of the door. 

“And I don’t want you to miss me.” He says. “But it seems like maybe you do, and so… I thought… maybe we could help each other. And then at least we wouldn’t have to feel like this for a little while. Just a little while.” 

He’d thought about it, thought that maybe even Tessa was apt to miss him sometimes. He knows he means something to her, and she’s home for a whole month, something’s going on with her, so he wants to be here for her if she wants him and especially if she needs him. And he’s wanted her for so long now there’s no use in pretending otherwise. 

He hears her sigh. “Come in.” She says, and his hand flies to the door, turns the knob and presses forward. 

He’s used to seeing her in bathtubs. She loves them and he loves that she loves them because they force her to be still for a little while, to relax. She loves baths but hates relaxing, so he’s glad that her love of one forces the other because she worries him sometimes with the guilt she has tied up in her own pleasure. It’s like she’s so opposed to feeling good that when she does, it actually _upsets_ her. He’d bought her a vibrator once, and she’d laughed at him, told him it was stupid, that she didn’t need it, and he knew that, but he wanted her to have it. He wanted her to feel good no matter what, who, or how. She’d used it with him the first time, let him hold it against her. He’d watched her face, the way she stared up at the ceiling like she was trying to resist the way it made her feel. Like, because it was just for her it shouldn’t count as much. He’d been gentle to start, easing her into it, gauging her pleasure by the colour of her cheeks and the hitch of her breath. And then the tears had gathered in her eyes, filling them up and spilling over onto her cheeks and she’d pressed her hands to her face to cover them, to cover her emotion because for some reason she thinks that shouldn’t always count either. 

Part of him worries it’s because of him - the way he has _so much_ feeling. He worries that he’s made her feel like she can’t also feel just as much, like she has to make room for his feelings because he’s so outward with them. He’s terrified that she’d do that, actually, and so ever since he’s had that realisation, somewhere in his early mid twenties, he’s been trying to find ways to draw the emotion from her, because otherwise she isolates. And maybe it’s none of his business anymore but maybe it is. Because he still cares. 

He’d pulled her hands from her face that first time they’d used the vibrator and had kissed her all over, set the little pink bullet down, pulled her onto his chest, let her sob. And she really had _sobbed._ It broke his heart to hear it but when she’d finished she was smiling through her tears, like a weight had been lifted off her. _It’s not bad to want to feel good._ He’d said to her. He wonders if she remembers. 

She’s looking up at him now, her hair pulled up into a loose bun, her arm resting on the lip of the bathtub, her freckle-flecked chest visible up to just the very tops of her breasts, the rest of her submerged in milky pink water that smells like roses. 

There’s a candle lit in the window, vanilla-scented, and her phone rests on the ledge beside it. 

Scott swallows thickly but approaches her, not bothering to look anywhere in particular, he’s seen all of her and she’s never been shy about it. He can see the lines of her body beneath the water as he approaches, it’s not opaque, there are her breasts, softer than he remembers, the flat plane of her stomach, her navel piercing appended, there’s the curves of her hips, the freckles on her thighs, the sweet, soft little triangle nestled between them that he knows so intimately, her calves and their lovely scars, and her feet, toenails painted red. As his eyes rake back up her body, he pauses again on all of them, then her collarbones, shimmering and dewy, the column of her neck, alabaster and perfect, her lips and her cheeks and those eyes once more, boring into him. He smiles weakly and sinks to his knees on the tile beside her, resting his arms on the lip of the tub with hers and balancing his chin on them. 

“Hi.” He says. 

He can’t remember how long it’s been since he’s seen her this way and yet it’s like it was just yesterday. He’ll never forget, he’s sure of that now. 

“I do miss you.” She says, and he nods, his arm falling forward lazily to dip his hand into the warm water. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t realise.” He says. He trails his hand through the water, caresses her side, just next to her breast, with his index finger, draws it downward, deeper into the water and then back up. 

“Do you want to talk to me?” He asks. “You can tell me… whatever it is.” 

She sighs softly and his hand splays on her stomach, his fingers drawing in and playing with her piercing before stroking back up and over her breasts, settling on her chest and moving back down to repeat the whole sequence. She lets him touch her like it’s nothing. It’s second nature to touch and be touched by one another. It doesn’t feel strange at all. 

“I don’t want to talk.” She says. 

“No?” He asks and nods, understandingly, his hand still traveling over her, reveling in the feel of her skin, even underwater. 

“I want you to _help_.” Her voice is soft and demanding and he loves it that way.

“Okay.” He whispers to her, leaning forward, tilting his head. She gives a little, leans toward him too, lets him press his lips against hers and he kisses her softly, sucking on her bottom lip. She takes like something sweet, maybe his mum’s cookies, which makes him smile slightly against her as his hand cups her breast, massages it gently and then plucks at her nipple. She exhales from her nose and he likes the warmth of it. Everything feels warm right now, save for the tile floor he’s kneeling on. But it’s well worth it. He plays with her breasts a little, teasing her the way he used to and he can feel the way it gets her flustered, makes her kiss him harder, shift under the water. It’s been so long since he’s touched her this way, but nothing about it feels strange or wrong. It feels like he should have been doing this all along. He presses upward, raises onto his knees moves his lips to her neck. She rests her head back on the edge of the tub, her eyelids fluttering prettily, cheeks as pink as the water, lips swollen from him. He takes his time on her, makes sure not to mark her, but sucks her skin hard enough to make her gasp. It’s glowing, her skin, bright and shimmery and she tastes just as he remembers. He kisses his favourite freckle of hers, the one shaped like a spaceship just over her right breast. She arches her back, lets her chest come out of the water so he can lave his tongue across her nipple with slow, intentional strokes, suckling her softly after, making her hiss. He kisses his way back up her body while his hand moves lower. His lips settle by her ear and he whispers to her how much he’s missed her, how much he’s missed touching her, kissing her, tasting her. Missed the way she feels, the way her body moves, reacts to him, how he’s missed how good she is for him. He’d been stroking along the perimeter of that little triangle between her legs as he’d been whispering those things to her, using the back of his hand, just going slowly, but she opens her legs when he says those words, _so good for me, Tess._ His voice is sanguine and he means it, every word, and he always has. 

She’s always liked it when he talks to her that way, and for a moment he wonders if she’s let anyone else talk to her that way, but something in his bones tells him no. He doesn’t think she has. 

He presses a soft kiss to her cheek as his fingers tease her slit. She’s impossibly warm there, and it makes him shudder and hum softly, which he can tell she likes. He starts to give her what she wants when she whines because it’s not about teasing. He wants to make her feel good. He rubs her softly, that spot that makes her purr and he’s rewarded with exactly that sound, low and rumbling and wanting in her throat. 

“I got you.” He says against her ear, pulling her lobe between his teeth. 

“Oh.” She sighs softly in a way that makes his insides flutter. 

“Yeah.” He breathes. “Come on, Tess.” He moves his fingers more purposefully between her legs, working her up until she’s rocking slightly, the water lapping at the sides of the tub.

She turns her head expectantly toward him and he kisses her softly, but she deepens it quickly, needy, as her legs close around his hand and her whole body quivers. 

He’s seen everything of hers, every emotion, every expression, every part of her physically, mentally and emotionally, but the way those factors join together when they’re like this is something he’ll never be able to accurately describe. It would be impossible, finding a way to encapsulate such feeling, beauty, trust, into words. It just isn’t plausible. And so this always feels new to him, every time. And it takes his breath away as it always does because of that, of the way it’s new and yet intricately practiced. 

She lets out a little mewling sound, soft against his mouth as she shivers, and he works her down slowly until her body relaxes. 

* * *

December 15th - Tessa 

* * *

He’d lifted her from the bathtub, gotten her dried off, all while she’d been undressing him, hand working the buttons of his shirt feverishly, the orgasm he’d given her only serving to bolster her desire. She wants him so badly, has been trying to fill those potholes with pebbles for far too long. 

She pushes him back onto the bed in just his boxer briefs, his erection pressing hard against the fabric, waiting for her. She’d wasted no time ridding him of them, her being so impatient. The thought had crossed her mind that maybe they should take their time, maybe they should try to draw this out seeing as it’s been so long, seeing as she has no idea when they’ll do this again, or even _if._ She doesn’t know what he wants anymore, she’s not sure she ever did, but she’s also not sure if that’s herself she’s talking about - if she’s known what he’d wanted all along and had been so clueless as to her wants that she’d pretended it was _him_ she was unsure about. 

She sinks onto his cock unceremoniously, the heat of the water still wafting from her skin, making her feel like her whole body is pulsating. 

She takes his hands, watching the way his eyes screw up, the way his breath gets caught in his lungs. He holds hers tightly and she presses them up above his head, leans over him and begins to rock against him. 

She doesn’t pay attention to the sounds she makes, knows they’re absolutely lewd, but she catalogues each and every sound that escapes him carefully, meticulously. 

She likes the way he strains underneath her, battling to keep his composure, how he looks so effortful. She likes knowing the things she can do to him, likes knowing that she can _still_ do them to him, like nothing’s changed at all. 

She feels powerful for a moment, like maybe he needs this more than she does, but then he opens his eyes and she loses her breath and he flips her over so easily she hardly even feels it. And then she feels _everything._ He’s so deep inside of her she can’t breathe suddenly and she’s clenching around him so tightly that she can feel every last inch of him, hot and straining, hard and tight. And she’s so wet, she realises when she hears it, when he presses himself impossibly further inside her, that she thinks she should be embarrassed but she’s not because it doesn’t fucking matter. It’s no use - either of them pretending that they don’t want this exactly as much as the other, that they both aren’t completely wrecked and desperate for one another. So she wraps her legs around his hips and bucks against him, drags that low grunt from him and forces him to grip her hair. They’re spread all over each other, always have been, it’s like they’re just repainting now, adding yet another layer to the work of art that is their joined forms, singles becoming more than double. 

She feels him everywhere. 

“Come inside me.” She begs him, her voice hoarse and urgent as his lips find her neck. She pulls his hair hard and he bites down on her the way she’d known he would. She wants him to mark her now. It’s different when it’s him. Everything is different when it’s him, it’s always been.

They’d been skinny-dipping once in the lake while at her cottage. They’d stayed up all night, unable to stop touching one another, so, taking advantage of the early hours, they’d snuck down to the beach in their robes, shed them quickly and had run into the lake. 

She’d wrapped her legs around his hips and he’d held her against him, bodies shivering together, goosebumps on goosebumps, their residual warmth bleeding into one another. They’d laughed at first, caught up in love and lust and secrecy and intrigue, in possibility and everything they dreamed they could be. But something about the heat of the other against the cold of the water and had lulled them into a state of reverie, rocking in time with the soft waves,holding one another like nothing else was worth holding. 

He’dlet her rest her head on his shoulder as they watched the sunrise - crimson and apricot and shining rays of pink and gold. She’s only ever seen it look that way in reality that one time, naked in the lake with her head on his shoulder and his arms wrapped around her… But she sees flashes of it when she comes - well, when _he’s_ the one making her come. When she closes her eyes - and even if she doesn’t, it skitters across her visual field - the screen of her life, those cuts of the movie that still contain him, like extras now, bathed in the light of the rising sun, the climax to the whole world, to the entirety of her existence, every day she’s ever known. Crimson and apricot, shining pink and gold. 

It’s like they’ve never been apart. 

He fills her completely, in a way she’s needed for so long now, and she finally feels a modicum of relief knowing that the feeling still exists, that he’s still here and still knows all those places inside of her mind and her body that nobody else has access to even when she tries her hardest to grant it. 

They lay there, his weight on top of her, for a long time. Lips still latched together, fingers still intertwined, the sun rising all around them. Crimson and apricot, shining rays of pink and gold. 

* * *

December 15th - Scott 

* * *

She’s sleeping now, or, he thinks she is. Her eyes are closed and her breath is steady. He looks down at her body, half covered by the one thin sheet that remains on her bed. He doesn’t remember how the blankets met such a fate in the heat of their rapture, but there she is, under just the sheet and there the blankets are, all hanging off the foot of the bed. He smiles softly to himself when the thought crosses his mind that she often wakes up this way anyway, without his help. She’s apt to toss and turn so much he’s surprised the mattress doesn’t end up on the other side of the room sometimes. 

“What?” She asks, and refocuses him to reality. 

She’s looking up at him, her nose scrunched. 

“Just thinking.” He says, leaning down and kissing the scrunch from her nose. 

She worries her lip, and he kisses that away as well. 

“Stop.” He says. 

“Stop what?” 

“Doing that.” 

“Doing what?” 

“Tess, this doesn’t mean anything, okay? I’m not an idiot, it’s just sex.” 

Her mouth flattens into a straight line. “Okay.” She says. 

“Okay.” He says. 

“But will you stay for a while?” She asks. 

“As long as you want me.” He tells her. 

She turns her back to him, presses against his chest, takes his arm and drapes it over her, and settles his hand on her breast. 

He presses his face against her neck, hiding a smile there. He’d never thought she’d miss him doing that. He kisses her, the little bruise he’d put there. It hadn’t been intentional but he won’t deny that he likes its existence. He likes that she’ll have to think about him, about _them_ consciously, every day until it fades. 

When they wake in the morning, and head downstairs, she's in his shirt for no other reason than she’d wanted to be. She has a closet full of pretty things, some he’s picked out for her, most he’s torn off her, but she’s in _his_ shirt. She wants to be. It means she _wants_ to be. It also means that she wants _him_ not to be. He likes that thought. 

He’s lifted her up onto her kitchen counter, plied her with a bowl full of milk and cereal from her own cupboard - she’d had hardly anything else in her kitchen which is a concern he supposes he’ll address later - and she’s doing that thing she used to do when they were kids where she digs all the crummy healthy parts out of the bowl first, leaving the sugary parts for last. He’s always found it funny that she wouldn’t want the opposite, to have all the good parts first. He remembers asking her about it, challenging her with the scenario that she might become too full after eating all the healthy parts and all her efforts would be for naught as the good parts would go un-eaten. But she’d looked up at him, hair braided into two neat rows and sinewy arms crossed with all of the confidence of a plucky pre-teenager, and had told him, _I never get too full for the good parts._

And as long as he’s known Tessa, that has held true. That’s one of her secrets, one of the ones not even he’s allowed to know. For all of the shit, she’s had to go through - and it’s been a lot more than he has - she’s never once gotten too full for the good parts. He worries sometimes that she will, that she’ll just have had her share of the bad and will give up on the good. He’s seen her debate it - after Sochi, after Pyeongchang, after her legs, sometimes after things he’s said or done to her - but she never does give in. She always has an appetite for the good, no matter how much bad there is. He tries to be the same, to follow her lead, but it’s hard sometimes, especially when he doesn’t know if there’s ever going to be good again. But that’s what last night was, wasn’t it? It was so good. Just the possibility that that might happen again is enough for him. It’s wrong, he thinks, to feel that way, to assign that much weight to something that’s happened just for the first time in five years, but if that’s what he has to do, then he’ll do it, because Tessa’s sitting on her kitchen counter in his shirt, starting in on the good bits. 

“What are you doing for your photo?” She asks him, eyes closing in bliss at the first bite of sweetness. 

He bites his lip to keep from smiling as widely as she makes him want to. 

“Dunno.” He says, and scoops a mix of the good and the bad into his mouth from his own bowl, balanced on the island across from her. 

His eyes fall to her legs, bare up to where his shirt hits her mid-thigh, and then traveling upward pausing on the outline of her breasts, her nipples, through the material.

She clears her throat. “Any ideas?” She asks, and his eyes snap up to her face where she’s smiling slyly. 

“Well…” He trails off, scooping up another mouthful of pros and cons and crunching them noisily. “I’ve had some inspiration.” 

“Have you?” She asks, eyebrows perking. 

He smiles playfully and stands, mouth full as he makes his way toward her. He swallows as he skims his hands up her legs and then holds her bowl along with her while she watches him. “What’s inspired you?” She asks, smirking. 

He lets out a huff of a laugh and tries to set her bowl beside them, but she holds onto it. “I’m not finished.” She says breathily, challenging him. And she’s not - still has a few good bits left in there and it makes him feel relieved, like nothing at all will stop her from getting to the good. 

“Take your time.” He says, releasing the bowl and sinking to his knees, pushing her thighs apart. “So will I.” He smirks and presses himself forward until he can kiss her centre. 

* * *

December 16th - Tessa 

* * *

She’s sprawled out on her kitchen counter, hands above her head, empty cereal bowl beside her, hair in disarray, Scott’s shirt pushed up almost past her breasts. He’s buried between her legs and she has no idea how long he’s planning on drawing this out but she thinks she’s going to go insane if he doesn’t make her come like, _now_. 

“Scott.” She whines, arching her back, the cool granite beneath her. He presses forward, his tongue dipping inside her, teasing that spot, making her moan. “ _Scott_.” She can feel him smiling against her and it’s infuriating. 

She doesn’t know if he’s ever gone quite this slowly. No, that’s not true, he has. He likes to draw it out sometimes, make her absolutely desperate, push her right to the edge of everything - pleasure, release, _sanity._

She likes it, she won’t deny that, she likes being his focus, she likes the way he monitors her every move so closely, using every little twitch or sigh as _data,_ filing it away and then stringing together all those datapoints when he decides the timing is right to make her feel things she’s never felt before. It’s different every time. Sometimes he’s sweet and gentle, other times rough, sometimes he’s something in the middle. She can usually predict which one he’ll choose based on the mood and the situation. Today he’s somewhere in the middle and she thinks it’s so that this doesn’t feel too intimate, thinks that otherwise he’d be gentle, because last night was a little rough. He likes to be gentle the morning after, especially, which she typically appreciates. But this feels more intimate than she’s felt with anyone in a long time despite his even temperament. She’s never had someone so very close for so long. Nobody’s taken the time to understand her the way Scott has. Men have tried, and honestly, a lot of the time she just hasn’t allowed it. It hasn’t felt right. _This_ is what it’s meant to feel like and nobody has been able to convince her otherwise. 

He’s fucking her with his tongue then and it’s so good that she feels it in waves throughout her entire body. 

“Scott, please -“ She whimpers, and then… _fuck, she’s crying._

_Why the fuck is she crying?_

She swears she’s never cried so much so consistently in all her life as these past two weeks. She covers her face, tries to contain the way she’s whimpering, but she feels an emptiness suddenly. 

She’s thinking of what he’d said to her. _This doesn’t have to mean anything, okay? I’m not an idiot, I’m not expecting you to like fall back in love with me or anything._

_How could it not mean anything?_

She’s in his arms suddenly and everything is blurry. 

They’re on the sofa. His hands are on the buttons of his shirt - the one she’s wearing - taking it off of her, _taking himself back,_ she thinks, because it doesn’t mean anything. 

But he leaves it on her, just opens it for her, opens it so he can see her. 

“Shh.” He’s saying, and she wishes he’d stop being so gentle. What happened to the in-between?

His lips are on her neck, his whole body warm against hers, his cock hard in his boxers, the cotton soft on her thighs. She’s so wet between her thighs that it feels cold and she shivers. His lips on her ear now, he whispers to her, “S’okay, hey, hey, Tess.” He smoothes her hair back.

She’s angry at him, she’s furious at him. For making her feel so much and for making all that feeling last so fucking long. It’s so simple when he’s not around, it’s easy to block everything out, all that sunshine. It’s so easy to make everything _numb._ It’s so easy to _decompress…_ Because she doesn’t have to care so much. And she doesn’t have to think about all of _this,_ what it feels like to have him. 

It’s not supposed to feel this way, it’s supposed to be the opposite. She’s supposed to feel like this is too much, but it’s not. It feels like coming _home._ And she remembers it now, what it feels like to have a _person_ as her home instead of a place. She remembers what it feels like to have Scott as her home. She’s been away for so long now. And she realises it suddenly, all her traveling, the plane hopping and hotels and different continents and countries, stamps in her passport and long distance calls to her mother and sister, she’s been away for so long because she had nowhere to go.

“Please stop.” She says, voice scratchy, her hands pushing his away from her face. “Stop.” 

“Tess.” He says. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. What happened? What’s wrong?”

“Can you go?” She asks, her voice seeming to work independently of her conscious mind. “Please?” 

“You want me to… you want me to leave?” He asks, confusedly. 

It hurts her to hear the words back and she wipes at her eyes and tries to stop herself from being so obvious about her weakness. 

“I forgot I need to do something.” She says. 

“You…” He trails off as he sits up, straddling her legs. She can tell he’s trying hard to understand what’s happening, but there’s no rational explanation, she can’t give him one, that’s why she’s telling him this. 

He sighs. “Tess, I don’t want to leave when you’re-“

“My mum’s coming over.” She tells him, lying as she swallows the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry, I forgot.” 

“Okay.” He says, nervously. It sounds like a surrender and he climbs off of her. “Are you sure?” He asks. “I could… I mean we could talk and I could just leave when she gets here and…” 

She’s not looking at him, her eyes are laser-focused on her knees and how stupid and knobby they look. She’s always thought that way about her knees, never liked them. 

“Okay.” She hears him say when she doesn’t answer. “I’m sorry.” 

She keeps her eyes on her stupid knees until he walks away, back up to her room to retrieve his pants and jacket, and his shoes from the top of the stairs. 

When he comes back down he’s standing in front of her, jacket zipped up and he kneels beside her, his hand touching her cheek. Gentle. 

“I’m sorry it didn’t help.” He says quietly, and he kisses her temple while she focuses so hard on her knees she thinks they might catch fire. 

“I’m going to call you.” He says. “Later tonight. Just so you know.” 

She wishes her knees actually _would_ catch fire, they’re so stupid. 

It’s not until he’s closed the door behind him and she hears his car leave her drive that she realises she’s still in his shirt. That he’d just zipped his jacket up over his bare chest and had left her with it. 

It hadn’t helped, giving in after all those years, because of course it told her exactly what she’d already known, that she _misses him._ She wonders if it had helped him. She pulls his shirt over her bare body and presses her nose against the collar, breathing his scent. Maybe it helped him. She hopes it has. 

She feels the tears prick her eyes again and realises that she’s still throbbing, still waiting for the release he’d promised her. She reaches a hand between her legs, slips three fingers into herself easily in an effort to equate to what two of his would fee like, and with a thumb to her clit she forces the orgasm from her shuddering body apathetically. As if she’s lancing a wound. 

* * *

December 16th - Scott

* * *

He spends the day making himself busy around the house, as if there’s a reason for it, as if anyone ever comes over, as if it’s some arduous and yet noble task to keep a one-person household in order. 

His hands shake the entire time. He realises only as he’s started the laundry that he’s still in without a shirt under his jacket. He’s glad she hadn’t offered him his shirt back. He doesn’t really even think she’d noticed but he likes that she has it still. He hopes she doesn’t give it back. He hopes she keeps it and maybe even wears it sometimes. He knows that’s a ridiculous thought, but it’s the honest truth. That’s the way he feels. 

He can’t for the life of him figure out what happened. He feels guilty, like maybe he’d pushed her too far. He’d been taking his time, but she’d seemed to like it. He’d missed her taste so much, the wet heat of her centre and her scent, that he’d perhaps been too caught up in his own arousal, the way he _thought_ he was making her feel as opposed to the way she’d actually been feeling. Except he always pays attention. The reason it’s so arousing to him is because it makes her feel so good, so he thinks that he’d been paying quite close attention to her and she’d liked it. He knows she had. So what had happened? 

Sometimes he can’t access her thoughts, and it makes him uncomfortable because he feels like he should be able to after all this time. But sometimes he can’t. Sometimes Tessa tries to hide them from him and when she does that it takes a lot of time for him to decode them. He’s sure he can still do it, but he needs her to talk to him a little, to open up to him just a little. But he’s not sure he has those privileges to her innermost thoughts anymore. 

He knows he’s taken her for granted in the past. The first time he’d realised it had been when he’d driven back home from Michigan on a long weekend. 

He’d asked her if she’d wanted to come, thinking her answer would of course be yes, but she’d turned him down. He couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t like she had any real friends, and he couldn’t imagine what she’d be getting up to on her own without him. But then he’d realised, as he was on the drive back, listening to his music, that she might want a break from him. He never let her listen to _her_ music, he’d get annoyed when she’d start singing, he’d yelled at her for scuffing his glove compartment with the toe of her shoe when she’d crossed her legs. She probably didn’t want to spend six hours of her weekend trapped in a car with him. 

He remembers the thought hitting him like a lead weight in the chest. He’d felt like he might be sick, actually. 

Who the fuck did he think he was, anyway? He didn’t really know anything about music at all, who’s to say his taste is _better?_ Why did it annoy him when she sang? She never felt comfortable enough to do that around anyone else, he thinks he should be grateful for it, that he gets to see a side of her that nobody else does. His car isn’t even _nice,_ it’s honestly pretty crappy, who cares if there’s a scuff mark on his glove compartment, there’s probably crushed Doritos in the creases of his very own seat. Of course she didn’t want to drive back with him, he was horrible. He treated her horribly. And why? She was never anything but sweet to him. She didn’t really have another side to her the way he did. She was even-keeled, level-headed, kind, soft-spoken, _sweet_ Tessa. And he’s lucky she put up with him at all. The things she lets him get away with sometimes… the things she lets him do to her… it’s not that she doesn’t respect herself, he thinks she does, but their partnership has to work and he thinks he’s a person that needs to take up space and she’s left squished in the corner, letting him spread out as much as he needs without ever complaining about it because she can’t. Because she has no room to, because he doesn’t give her the room. 

He’d hated himself that weekend, had been absolutely disgusted with himself, and when he’d come back, he’d gone straight to her apartment, knocked on her door and pulled her into a hug. 

She laughed about it, like he was being ridiculous and he’d thought maybe he’d been wrong, that she’d just wanted to stay home that weekend.

He wishes he would have just seen that Tessa’s too gracious to ever suggest to him that he’s not what she needs. 

He’d been right, of course, about him taking up too much space, and because his young self had been too stupid to really believe it, even though the answer was right there in front of his face, in his own words, he’d let himself go back to his old self, to treating her poorly again. It was years of this flip-flopping and he knows it had hurt her in ways she’s never really expressed to him because she’s _Tessa,_ and she won’t tell him because she knows it’ll _hurt_ him. that’s how she is. That’s how much he didn’t deserve her. It wasn’t until the comeback that he’d really changed, when the idea of them not being together really hit him. He’s ashamed that it had taken him so long to see it, but he had seen it eventually, and he thinks she knows it. She’d felt safer then, he’s sure of it, the way she’d softened around him, like she could finally relax. The way she’d ask him to stay over, or to help her roll a knot out of her back, or even to make her breakfast. She’d asked him for things then, and it was only really then that he’d realised how much she _hadn’t_ asked from him before, and how sorry he is that she hadn’t because he _loves_ doing things for her. 

It had surprised him at the time how much he’d loved it, but really it shouldn’t have. He’d always loved doing things for her, he’d just never really thought about it. And he’s not sure why it took him so long to see her that way, as more than just his partner and his friend and someone he’d been attracted to, someone who, it had seemed, he was _supposed_ to be with. He realised that they weren’t predestined. And the thought had really terrified him, because he’d kind of counted on it. As much as he’d been annoyed by her, he’d always loved her, from the moment they’d met, he thinks. She has this way about her, her soft fierceness, where she can be exactly everything she needs to be and yet never compromise who someone else is, never take up _their_ space. He hadn’t been able to do that, not until he’d realised that she had things to teach him too. 

So here he is so many years later, terrified that maybe he’s missed something, that he’s not giving her what she needs, enough space or enough touch or enough of whatever it was she’d ever seen in him, because half the time he doesn’t even know why she’d entertained the thought of them in the first place. He’s terrified that he’s forgotten how to be there for her, how to be what she needs, how to be _hers._

He calls her that night and when she answers, there are voices in the background. 

“Sorry.” He says immediately. “If this is a bad time.” 

“No.” She says. “It’s not.” 

“Where are you?” He asks. 

“At a bar.” She tells him. 

“Oh.” He says. Her answer surprises him. She doesn’t often go to bars. “Are you sure you’re not busy?” It’s the least pathetic way he can think of asking her _are you with someone?_

“No.” She says simply. 

“What are you drinking?” He asks. He wants to know if he can still guess. 

“Just cab.” She says, and he smiles slightly, feeling good about the fact that he still can. 

“Can I talk to you about today?” He asks. “Is that alright?” 

“Yeah.” She says. 

“I just don’t know why you were crying, Tess.” He says. “And if it was something I did, I’m so sorry, I would never want to do anything to hurt you.” 

“I know.” She says softly.

There’s silence and he’s giving her space to think and respond, but he’s not expecting it when she says, “Do you feel like going to a bar?” 

His mouth is dry and he tries not to sound stupid when he says, “Yeah.” With the conviction of a dying man who’s been asked if he feels like another year of life. 

“I’m at the one your friend likes… James.” She says, and Scott knows the one. “I’ll be there in twenty.” He tells her. 

James asked Tessa to this bar years ago. He’d done it because he’d known Scott was going to be there and because he knew Tessa was too nice to say no, and because he knew it would drive Scott insane and because Tessa was Tessa. 

His friends always teased him about her, because for some reason her looks made their partnership a big joke. He still doesn’t really understand it, but he remembers acutely how upset it would make him. He’s never liked anyone talking about Tessa unless it was to sing her praise. It didn’t matter how they were doing at the time, whether they were fighting or fucking, he wouldn’t ever let anyone speak badly of her, and he had even less tolerance for people, _men,_ disrespecting her. It happened often, because when men feel threatened, they resort to that kind of thing, degrading a woman simply because she wouldn’t give him the time of day. He’d never told Tessa about the things his friends said, of course, but he thinks she knew, especially after that night at the bar.

He’d been fuming when he’d spotted James with Tessa, but he couldn’t say anything without looking like a complete asshole. She was twenty-one at the time, who the hell was he to tell her who she could hang out with. 

But he kept looking at her all night, and she kept looking at him because she hadn’t known he was going to be there. He could tell she was uncomfortable with the fact and with the way his friends were speaking to her, all of them surrounding her and bombarding her with questions about _flexibility_ and _artistry,_ and _how tight her body must be to do all those things._ He hit a breaking point when he realised that she’d understood why his friend had asked her here. He could see it in her face, the embarrassment, the fear, the shame, even. 

_“Alright, fuck off.”_ He’d told them all, his hand on her back, _“We have an early session tomorrow, come on, T.”_

She’d looked at him like he’d _saved_ her and he’d felt enormously guilty for it because he was the reason she was there in the first place, so his friends could make a spectacle out of her, out of him, out of them. 

He’d driven her home and she’d kept her face turned toward the window the entire time so he couldn’t see her expression, but he could tell she was hurt. He put the radio on her favourite station and had told her softly, “You look really beautiful tonight, Tess.” She had.

She didn’t answer him, kept her arms folded over her chest, her legs crossed, completely closed off. 

“James is an idiot.” He says, turning onto her street. “They’re all idiots, obviously.” 

“Mhm.” She’d hummed. He could see her biting her lip in the reflection of the mirror when a streetlight had shone on it at the right angle. 

He didn’t say anything after that. 

He’d walked her to her door even though she’d insisted he not. 

It’s not that they’d said anything bad about her outright, they’d actually only said good things, but they’d all been sexual and he could understand somehow that she’d felt completely disrespected and that she’d felt she had no control over it. He thinks, now that he’s looking back, that he could understand it because it had felt disrespectful to him as well. They were disrespecting his partner so they were disrespecting _him_. 

But he could take it, for his part he could take their abuse, but he wasn’t about to let Tessa.

He took her hand as she’d opened her door and she’d turned to him. He’d fiddled with her ring, turning it on her finger, and then he’d brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss there, like he’d do if it were choreographed. His young self had always been embarrassed by such tender shows of affection, but as he’d grown older he liked them more and more. And when he did that, pressed his lips to her soft hand, it had felt right. 

And she looked at him like it was too.

“You’re so much more than all those stupid things.” He’d said to her. Not his most eloquent, but it had done the job, especially since that Scott had been far less than eloquent on his best days. 

She’d smiled at him, weakly, but truly, and had thanked him for driving her home. 

He hadn’t really hung around those guys after that.

He finds it funny now that she’s wanted to meet him at that particular bar, but he’ll meet her anywhere. 

* * *

December 16 - Tessa

* * *

He’s sitting across from her, beer untouched in front of him, looking like he’s about to be ill. 

“I don’t understand.” He says, bluntly. It’s hardly ever that he admits something like that freely. 

She sips her wine. “Me either.” She admits. 

She’s done nothing all day, lay on the sofa in his shirt, tears escaping her eyes every so often. 

She’s trying not to be desperate, she doesn’t really know what she wants. Has she ever?

“Why were you crying?” He asks, more directly. 

She fiddles with the stem of her wine glass. “I’m having a hard time.” She says vaguely, and he knows this, it’s why he’d come over in the first place, so they could _help_ each other. 

“I didn’t help.” He says, almost as if he’d been listening in on her thoughts. It doesn’t alarm her, it never has. If she found out one day that he’d possessed that ability all along it wouldn’t even surprise her. 

“You did.” She says, feeling awfully when she hears the sadness in his voice. He really had helped, he’d shown her what she’d needed to see, broken down that last stubborn wall that she’d been using all her strength to hold up between them. 

“Then why were you upset?” 

He sounds like his teenage self, so upset that _she’s_ upset. It’s sweet. He’s sweet. 

“I think it’s just hard for me to be home.” She says. 

Scott looks at her, his fingers curling and uncurling nervously on the wooden table. “Why?” He asks her. 

“Because it forces me to stay still and think.” She says. “And when I do that I realise how um… _unhappy_ I am.” She looks down into her wine, the dark of it obscuring the her fingers through the other side of the glass. 

“Tess.” He says sorrowfully. “Why are you unhappy?” 

She sighs. “I don’t know I think… what I thought I wanted just isn’t… it just… isn’t.” She hates saying it, because it’s the whole reason that they’d broken up, because it wasn’t what she’d wanted, but it hadn’t been what he’d wanted either and it’s frustrating and seems ridiculous now that nothing seems right. 

Scott doesn’t say anything. “What do you want, T?” He asks, and she looks up at him, at his earnest face. He’s not hopeful, not expecting her to say anything about him at all, and she hates so much how far they’ve come. 

“I don’t know.” She says, repeating her inner thoughts from earlier. “I don’t think I ever know.” 

“You always know.” He says, finally reaching out and taking a sip of his beer. “You always know exactly what you want.” 

She pauses at this and thinks about it, finds it interesting that two people can have essentially the exact same knowledge, have lived through the exact same experiences, and yet have completely different perspectives. 

“I don’t think so.” She says, watching his hands again like she’d been doing the other week. She just likes them, she just likes looking at them. 

“You never told me what you were going to do for your photo.” She says. 

He looks up at her and smiles affectionately, and she thinks he’s thinking of how expertly and discreetly she’s always been able to change a subject. 

“I was going to do it of skates.” He says, on shredded up ice.” 

She cocks her head. The topic had been _shame._

“Are you ashamed of skating?” She asks, confused. 

He huffs a laugh and sips his beer. “No.” He says, “But I’m ashamed of a lot of things that had to do with that time in my life.” 

“Oh.” She says, can feel her eyebrows come together, can feel the way it makes her back tighten. 

“Not anything that we did together, Tess.” He says. “I would never be ashamed of that.” He lays a hand on her wrist and it feels heavy. She watches his hand there as he explains. 

“I’m kind of… I could be such a dick back then and I’m pretty ashamed of that.” He says. “There are a lot of things I wish I could do differently and if I could go back and change them I would. Especially the things that hurt _you_.” 

“Oh.” She hears herself saying reflexively. It’s just he’s jabbed her with something. She hadn’t expected that. She hadn’t even known he’d thought about those things, they were so long ago… they were… they didn’t affect her anymore… did they? 

“Yeah.” He says softly, his thumb tracing over her wrist. “I should have been better.” He says. “I should have been so much better to you.” 

“Oh.” She says again, and it feels like he’s stabbed her this time, with the realisation that she does wish that were true. It stings. 

“Tess.” He says, “Hey, sorry if this is hard to talk about, we could go-“ 

“No.” She says, steeling herself. She’s not going to cry again, certainly the whole being in _public_ thing will make sure of that for her. “I’m fine.” She says. 

“Okay.” He says. “Well yeah, anyway, I was kind of planning on that as the shot and I was um… I was hoping to tell you about it somewhere a little more um… private, so I’m sorry if it’s just out of the blue.” 

“No.” She says, swallowing hard as she tries to decide if this she’s ever felt so many emotions in one day. “I asked.” 

Scott nods and his hand feels like it’s going to burn a hole in her wrist. “I just wanted you to know that I never forgot about all that stuff. I can’t really make up for it because it happened and I’m really sorry about that. But I do want you to know that I’m aware of it and I think about it a lot and I feel… yeah, shame. I feel ashamed of it. Because you didn’t deserve any of it.” 

She turns her head quickly away from him and lets out a hard sigh before turning back, her eyes back on his wrist. He removes it self-consciously with an apology but she shakes her head. “No, don’t I-“ Is all she gets out before he’s touching her again, and the weight of it feels even better than before. 

She looks up at his face and he’s looking at her funny. “Is that why you’re here? For your photo?” He asks and she feels her face flush red. 

“Tess.” He says. “I… Fuck, Tessa you didn’t have anything to be ashamed about. You weren’t… that wasn’t anything to do with you.” 

Her eyes feel hot and tired suddenly, and they ache from within. “It was just a thought.” She says. “I have more ideas, I’m just workshopping.” It’s the truth, she has plenty of things in her life that she’d classify as shameful, the hickey on her neck for starters, the fact that it’s the second one in as many weeks can’t be communicated through a photograph without evidence of the previous but it would still put her shame at the fact that it is on display. 

Maybe she should just take a selfie, she thinks. She feels deeply shameful, sometimes for reasons she’s not even sure of. 

Scott’s face is worried and she laughs to try and make him stop. “It’s just an idea. It’s okay, really, it was so long ago.” 

“It doesn’t matter how long ago it was.” He says, and his voice is tense. And it’s true. It doesn’t matter how long ago it was. The last time they’d slept together had been five years ago and that hadn’t mattered at all last night or this morning or right now or ever. 

“I wish I had been better.” He says, “Because it wasn’t your fault.” 

“I was kind of asking for it.” She says, “I did agree to come out with him.” 

“Tess.” He says, his grip tightening on her, “You agreed to come to a bar with a guy who pretended to be nice and respectful and interesting, you did not agree to come here and get gawked at and talked down to and disrespected and treated like you were an object. And I know I um… there were a lot of times when I made you feel less than.”

“Not-“ She says, but he shakes his head. 

“Not stuff like that.” He says, and she’s glad he knows it. “But um… I mean I used to talk down to you, I didn’t always understand where you were coming from and it was wrong of me to just call that stuff _wrong,_ because it was different from the way I felt, and not only that, but the way I went off sometimes… It was immature and I know it… it scared you. It made things hard for you and you always just kind of brushed it off and I know that must have been really hard and I’m sorry, T.” 

It feels like she’s been stabbed again, but this time it’s her own thoughts that do it. She’s always felt that way, but she’d had trouble voicing it because he’d been nice at first, and she’d thought his friends genuinely liked her as a person. It hurts to hear him confirm those beliefs that they treated her that way but at the same time it feels nice to hear that it really hadn’t been all in her head, and about the other things too, it was nice to hear that she hadn’t been wrong to be upset by them, they really had been hard. And he hadn’t just magically changed one day after Sochi, he’d been consciously thinking about it, maybe this whole time. 

She does remember him kissing her hand after he’d driven her home that night after the bar and she’d been so confused by it, unsure if he was secretly making fun of her, hanging out with guys like that and then turning around and being all sweet the way his friend had when he’d first asked her out. She’d decided long ago that he was being genuine and now of course she knows he was, but it’s still so nice to hear him say it, even after all these years. She’s not sure why she has such internalised shame about the whole situation, but she does. She has internalised shame about a lot of things - feeling like she’s too much, too intense, too detached, too driven, cold, unforgiving. They’re coping mechanisms and it’s nice to hear that Scott understands that. 

She thinks he’s talking about things a lot more recently than their early twenties and his face confirms it. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t understand.” He says. “I should have tried harder to. I should have listened harder. You deserved that and I’m glad you didn’t settle for less.” 

_He’s saying he’s glad we're not together,_ she thinks, but he looks upset about it. 

“I wish I could have realised things back then.” He says. “Maybe it’d be different now.” _He’s saying he wishes they were together now,_ she thinks. 

“Do you miss me because you feel guilty?” She asks, and she can tell the question takes him off guard.

“No.” He says, eyebrows knitted together. “I miss you because I always miss you. But I also feel guilty, that I treated you the way I did.” 

“I wasn’t perfect either.” She says. 

Scott shrugs. “You were pretty close though.” 

She smiles and laughs at this remark, finds the idea of it - her, _perfect -_ or anything close for that matter, funny. 

He smiles because she does. She likes when that happens. 

His hand moves from her wrist to her low back and runs back and forth comfortingly. 

She leans toward him, wants to show him that she wants his touch. “I always miss you too.” She says softly and his face glows. She can tell he hadn’t expected that. 

He swallows effortfully. “Did you like last night? He asks. 

She nods. 

“Did you like this morning?” 

She nods again. 

“But it was too much?” He asks, desperately trying to understand her tears. 

“Sometimes I try to forget how much I miss you.” She says and sees him wince, but she wants him to know the whole truth. “But this morning it was like it all came back at once and I wasn’t ready for it. I guess I thought it would be different, like… _less_.” 

“But it wasn’t?” He asks. 

She shakes her head. “Was it for you?” She regrets asking because if he answers that it was she doesn’t know what she’ll do. 

But he doesn’t. “I think it was more, even.” He says and she nods silently, feeling her heart beating loudly in her chest. 

“Tess?” He asks and she looks to him. “Are you ready for it now?” 

She blinks back needles behind her eyes. “I don’t know.” She says softly. 

His hand leaves her back, comes up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Okay.” He says, like he understands completely, his hand tracing her cheek as he lets it fall away. Her eyes go with it, the disappointment hanging in the air. 

“Well, maybe in time.” He says suddenly and her eyes dart back up to his desperately. He smiles and she feels her heart swell. “You’re here two more weeks, eh?” He winks at her. 


End file.
